Anticaustics in a Fabry-Perot interferometer

We address the response of a Fabry-Perot interferometer to a monochromatic point source. We calculate the anti -caustics (that is, the virtual wavefronts of null path difference) resulting from the successive internal reflections occurring in the system. They turn out to be a family of ellipsoids (or hyperboloids) of revolution, which allows us to reinterpret the operation of the Fabry-Perot interferometer from a geometrical point of view that facilitates comparison with other apparently disparate arrangements, such as Young's double slit. (c) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement