Far-field reflector problem and intersection of paraboloids (Q315717)

The far-field reflector problem is an inverse problem arising in geometric optics which deals with the description of light distribution emitted by a punctual light source located at the origin and a desired target distribution of light at infinity. The main question concerns the creation of a surface that reflects the light emitted by the punctual light source into the target distribution of light. The paper under review deals with a numerical approach of this problem. The main idea is to compute the intersection of a Voronoi-type diagram (power diagram) with the unit sphere. In such a way the authors develop an algorithm that computes the intersection of confocal paraboloids . At the same time, by using optimal transport arguments, the relationship between the far field reflector problem and a suitable concave maximization problem is developed. Several open problems and research perspectives are developed in the final part.