Monzón Serrano, Juan JoséSánchez Soto, Luis Lorenzo2023-06-182023-06-182015-070143-080710.1088/0143-0807/36/4/045021https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/24136© 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd.Many of the ideas in this paper originated from a long cooperation with the late Alberto G Barriuso, who unexpectedly passed away before being able to guide this work to completion. This paper is dedicated to his memory. Over the years, these ideas have been further developed and expanded with questions, suggestions, criticism, and advice from many colleagues. Particular thanks for help in various ways goes to G Bjork, J F Carinena, H de Guise, P de la Hoz, A B Klimov, G Leuchs, and J M Montesinos-Amilibia. This work is partially supported by the Spanish MINECO (Grant FIS2011-26786).The complex reflected and transmitted amplitudes from a Fabry-Perot interferometer are analysed using a phase-space approach, in which the real and imaginary parts of those amplitudes are taken as basic variables. As functions of the optical path length of the cavity, the reflected amplitude describes a circle, whereas the transmitted is given by a hippopede. The system performance can be directly related to the geometrical parameters of these curves.engjournal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0143-0807/36/4/045021http://iopscience.iop.org/open access535Fabry-PerotPhase-space methodsInterferometryÓptica (Física)2209.19 Óptica Física