Microwave :Michelson and Fabry-Perot interferometers are resp ectively cons idered as instances of: (1) A "reflection system ", consisting of a radiating-receiv ing system a nd a refl ecting object (e.g., a finite mirror); a nd (2) a "transmission system " , consistin g of a ra di ating system and a receiving system with an object (e .g., a F a br y-P erot etalo n) in terposed . The basic theo retical objective is t he calculation of th e a mpli t ud e and p hase of t he (time-harmon ic) r

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... ed s ignal in the systems con sidered . The electromagnetic fi eld in sp ace transmission paths is represen ted in terms of con tinuous angular spectra of vectorial plane waves, and t he elemen ts of the systems are d esc ri bed by means of sui table tensor scattering matrices (havin g both d iscrete a nd continu ous ind ices) . N eeded scatter in g matrices a re cons id ercd known ; relation ships to ex p erimcn tall y determina bl e data are outlined. The gen eral case of e iLher the re fl ection or t ransm ission system is solu ble forma lly in terms of a se ries of in teg rals stemmin g from t he Liou vi ll e-Ne umann series solution of certain integral eq uations. Formulas a re obtained for mode ls of t he Michelson and Fabry-P ero t instrumen ts wit h arbitrary rad iatin g and receiv in g cha racteristics. Th e th eo ry and vari ous features f t he instruments cons idered, i ncludi ng Fresnel-region (or qu asi-optical) behavior, a re illustrated by means of examples obtain ed by choos in g rcla t ively simple and rather hypothe tical a nalytical expressions for t he rad iatin g and receiving characteris tics.