Coloured phase singularities

Abstract

For illumination with white light, the spectra near a typical isolated phase singularity (nodal point of the component wavelengths) can be described by a universal function of position, up to linear distortion and a weak dependence on the spectrum of the source. The appearance of the singularity when viewed by a human observer is predicted by transforming the spectrum to trichromatic variables and chromaticity coordinates, and then rendering the colours, scaled to constant luminosity, on a computer monitor. The pattern far from the singularity is a white that depends on the source temperature, and the centre of the pattern is flanked by intensely coloured 'eyes', one orange and one blue, separated by red, and one of the eyes is surrounded by a bright white circle. Only a small range of possible colours appears near the singularity; in particular, there is no green.