Direct parameterization of caustics of Fredholm functionals (Q941969)

In [\textit{E. V. Chemerzina}, Tr. Mat. Fak., Voronezh. Gos. Univ. 2000, 70--74 (2000)], a direct approach to the construction of the parameterization of a caustic that is free from the versality condition and requires substantially less calculations is proposed, based on the Raleigh-Schrödinger theory of perturbations of symmetric linear operators. In this article, the authors outline the theoretical foundations of this new approach (which includes the generalized Raleigh-Schrödinger algorithm) and describe some applications of this approach to the problem of parameterization of a caustic.