On the reflector shape design

Abstract

In this paper we study the problem of recovering the reflecting surface in a reflector system which consists of a point light source, a reflecting surface, and an object to be illuminated. This problem involves a fully nonlinear partial differential equation of Monge-Ampère type, subject to a nonlinear second boundary condition. A weak solution can be obtained by approximation by piecewise ellipsoidal surfaces. The regularity is a very complicated issue but we found precise conditions for it.