Jacobi polynomials and the numerical solution of ray tracing through the crystalline lens

Abstract

Abstract The human eye is a fascinating optical system, with the crystalline lens playing a significant role in focusing light onto the retina of the eye. The ray tracing through the crystalline lens problem is a challenging problem in optics. In this paper, the case of a non-homogeneous optical medium is investigated, and the ray equation is numerically solved to get the ray paths. The governing equation is an ODE with a fractional derivative given in the Caputo sense. A novel numerical scheme is based on the Jacobi polynomial collocation technique to tackle this problem. A fast and accurate Broyden’s Quasi-Newton algorithm is applied to solve the nonlinear system of equations obtained from the collocation process. Numerical results are stated in detail to show the efficiency of our technique and are compared with other analytical and numerical methods using tables and illustrated figures, which will be useful to corroborate the clinical and physical data. Ray tracing through the crystalline lens is not only fascinating from a scientific perspective but also has practical implications across various domains, and the proposed scheme is considered a promising and practically reliable method to address such types of applications.