Diffraction integral and propagation of Hermite-Gaussian modes in a linear refractive index medium

We derive a diffraction integral to describe the paraxial propagation of an optical beam in a graded index medium with the permittivity linearly varying with the transverse coordinate. This integral transformation is irreducible to the familiar ABCD transformation. The form of the integral transformation suggests that, unlike a straight path in a homogeneous space, any paraxial optical beam will travel on a parabola bent toward the denser medium. By way of illustration, an explicit expression for the complex amplitude of a Hermite-Gaussian beam in the linear index medium is derived.