An annular slot antenna which is backed by a cylindrical or a coaxial cavity is excited by a current sheet in the slot plane which exhibits no azimuthal (

) variation. The integral equation which relates the radial electric field in the slot plane to the linear source current density is solved by variational techniques. The numerical calculations emphasize narrow slots and shallow cavities. The slot antennas may resonate with cavity depth

. A resonant antenna exhibits nearly the same bandwidth as the slot which is backed by

deep cavity. Dielectric cavity loading decreases the size of a resonant cavity, but it also decreases the antenna bandwidth.