Rooms with a view: a novel approach to iterated multidimensional wave conversion (Q426155)

The paper deals with the analysis of the iterated conversion phenomenon in tracing rays confined to a cavity for the case in which the rays can re-enter the conversion region many times. The authors propose new tools for the study of this problem. Namely, the concept of a room is introduced, which is a three-dimensional representation of the dispersion surface for each uncoupled wave type. Included within each room is a copy of the conversion surface, which is the set of all points in the room that satisfy both dispersion relations. Hence, points on the conversion surface lie in both rooms, and provide a path for rays to hop from one room to the other. The full understanding of iterated conversion requires the global study of the dynamical cascade of all possible compositions of the ray-induced maps, allowing for rays to hop between the two rooms an arbitrary number of times. Finally, the evolution equation for the conserved action flux density entering the conversion surface under the action of the ray-induced maps is described.