Study of amplified spontaneous emission systems by the ray-tracing technique

Abstract
An implementation of the ray-tracing method for the study of radiation properties, such as intensity and spatial coherence, of an amplified spontaneous emission system is presented. Simple relations that express the con-trolling effect of the refraction on the output radiation properties are derived. We use analytical expressions, along with detailed numerical calculations, in order to analyze the intensity and the spatial coherence of the output radiation measured in x-ray laser experiments.