Paragraph:

Light guidance in an optical fiber can be understood by considering a structure comprising of thin solid glass cylinder of refractive index \(n_{1}\) surrounded by a medium of lower refractive index \(n_{2}\). The light guidance in the structure takes place due to successive total internal reflections at the interface of the media \(n_{1}\) and \(n_{2}\) as shown in the figure. All rays with the angle of incidence \(i\) less than a particular value \(i_{m}\) are confined in the medium of refractive index \(n_{1}\). The numerical aperture (NA) of the structure is defined as \(\sin i_{m}\).





Question:

If two structures of same cross-sectional area, but different numerical apertures \(N A_{1}\) and \(N A_{2}\left(N A_{2} < N A_{1}\right)\) are joined longitudinally, the numerical aperture of the combined structure is