Possibilities of microinterferometry in the investigation of nonstationary processes

The present paper deals with an experimental investigation in which a Mach-Zehnder interferometer was used to study the initial stage of the development of an electrical discharge in a liquid dielectric, with the aim of determining the applicability of interferometry to unsteady disturbances on the order of 0.1 mm involving shock waves. Radial profiles of the refractive index behind weak shock fronts (time resolution of 5 nsec, space resolution of 5 microns) are obtained by numerical inversion of Abel's integral equation. The solution of this equation is simulated by the method of statistical regularization on jump functions, using a nonuniform grid. Some error sources are examined.