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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 February 2012
This paper is concerned with high-frequency scattering in a medium, the square of whose refractive index varies linearly with height from a plane boundary. Two asymptotic methods are examined, namely the method of stationary phase and evaluation by residue series. The first of these corresponds to geometric optics and gives the high-frequency field in the illuminated region, while the second complements the first in the sense that if thsre is no point of stationary phase, the residue series is an asymptotic expansion of the field. The Airy functions in the residue series can be replaced by their asymptotic developments in terms of exponentials, and when this is done only the first term or first creeping wave is of genuine significance.