Information content analysis of aerosol remote-sensing experiments using an analytic eigenfunction theory: anomalous diffraction approximation

An important step in any planned remote sensing experiment is an analysis of the information content of the equations which will finally be inverted. In this paper, the authors show the value of performing such an analysis by using a recently developed analytic eigenfunction theory. So that the analytic nature of this technique may be fully used, it has been applied first to the anomalous diffraction approximation to the Mie theory extinction efficiency. Analytical expressions for the eigenfunctions and eigenvalues are derived. The effects of ill conditioning, and their amelioration resulting from the inclusion of certain a priori knowledge, are then investigated.