LIE-POISSON DESCRIPTION OF HAMILTONIAN RAY OPTICS

We express classical Hamiltonian ray optics for light rays in axisymmetric fibers as a Lie-Poisson dynamical system defined in R3, regarded as the dual of the Lie algebra sp(2,R). The ray-tracing dynamics is interpreted geometrically as motion in R3 along the intersections of two-dimensional level surfaces of the conserved optical Hamiltonian and the skewness invariant (the analog of angular momentum, conserved because of the axisymmetry of the medium). In this geometrical picture, a Hamiltonian level surface is a vertically oriented cylinder whose cross section describes the radial profile of the refractive index, and a level surface of the skewness function is a hyperboloid of revolution around a horizontal axis. Points of tangency of these surfaces are equilibria, which are stable when the Gaussian curvature of the Hamiltonian level surface (constrained by the skewness function) is negative definite at the equilibrium point. Examples are discussed for various radial profiles of the refractive index. This discussion places optical ray tracing in fibers into the geometrical setting of Lie-Poisson Hamiltonian dynamics and provides an example of optical ray trapping within separatrices (homoclinic orbits).