title: Caustics in a meridional plane produced by concave conic mirrors.
abstract: We study the formation of caustic surfaces produced by a concave conic mirror considering a point source placed at arbitrary position along the optical axis. Using the caustic formula and a paraxial approximation, we derive analytic expressions to evaluate the spherical aberration at the third order. A formula to reduce this aberration at any order is provided, which gives the condition for stigmatic points. Furthermore, we apply the formulas to evaluate the circle of least confusion for a concave conic mirror as a function of all parameters involved in the process of reflection.
authors.affiliation: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de Ciencias Aplicadas y Desarrollo Tecnológico, Mexico.
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maca-García
authors.forename: Maximino
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Avendaño-Alejo
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Castañeda