Abstract

The glare spots usually seen on a single water droplet which has been illuminated by a plane wave are produced by geometrical rays which correspond to the different terms of the Debye series expansion of the Mie scattered field. Recently other glare spot enhancements have been predicted which correspond to scattering resonances coupling to the orbiting rays associated with high-order geometrical rainbows. We observed the non-Debye enhancement of the eleventh-order rainbow glare spot at an observation angle of 90° on a 3.5-mm water droplet illuminated by polarized He–Ne laser light.

© 1989 Optical Society of America

Theory of the observations made of high-order rainbows from a single water droplet

James A. Lock
Appl. Opt. 26(24) 5291-5298 (1987)

Cooperative effects among partial waves in Mie scattering

James A. Lock
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 5(12) 2032-2044 (1988)

Interference of the eleventh- and higher-order rainbows formed by a pendant water drop

Pak-hong Ng, Pui-yiu So, Chiu-wah Chan, and Wing-kee Lee
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 20(11) 2395-2399 (2003)

Interference of the n^th- and the higher-order rainbows formed by a water drop

Kin-Sang Ng and Wing-Kee Lee
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 24(12) 3072-3076 (2007)

Rainbows in the grass. I. External-reflection rainbows from pendant droplets

James A. Lock, Charles L. Adler, and Richard W. Fleet
Appl. Opt. 47(34) H203-H213 (2008)