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A New Tool for Evaluating the Fresnel Diffraction Integral
JOA 2026, Vol. 16, No. 2, Page 12 Author(s): Robert L. Anderson Jr.Abstract: In 2022, Max Cubillos and Edwin Jimenez published a new method for evaluating the 2D Fresnel diffraction integral. Their algorithm, referred to here as the Sinc method, is the new tool highlighted in this article. This article compares the Sinc method to the Trester method (Seymour Trester, 1999) which is frequently applied to modelling diffraction effects in stellar occultations. It is shown that when applied to the same problem, the two methods produce identical results. Several examples illustrate why the Sinc method can handle a broader range of observational situations than the Trester method. A link at the end of the article gives a url to a GitHub repository containing the Jupyter(Python) notebooks used in preparing this article.