Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group

Beam wander in a turbulent medium: An application of Ehrenfest’s theorem

Not Accessible

Your library or personal account may give you access

Abstract

Beam wander of a finite optical beam propagating in a turbulent medium is investigated theoretically. Using the optical analog of Ehrenfest’s theorem, it is shown that the centroid of a finite beam propagates as a paraxial ray in a certain effective refractive index that depends on the irradiance profile of the beam. Ray statistics in the effective refractive index are studied for arbitrary irradiance profiles and new results are obtained for the variance of spot displacement and beam angle of arrival. These results are then applied to the particular cases of focused and collimated gaussian beams in atmospheric turbulence with a modified Von Karman power spectrum to yield the functional dependence of spot dancing and angle-of-arrival statistics on the inner and outer scales of turbulence and on the Fresnel number for focused gaussian beams.

© 1975 Optical Society of America

Full Article  |  PDF Article
More Like This
Thermal self-focusing of TEM01 laser beams and ring-shape self-focusing of two specific mixtures of modes*

M. S. Sodha and V. P. Nayyar
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 65(9) 1027-1030 (1975)

Asymptotic theory of irradiance fluctuations in a beam propagating in a random medium

Alan M. Whitman and Mark J. Beran
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 65(7) 765-768 (1975)

Depolarization of a Laser Beam in a Turbulent Medium

E. Collett and R. Alferness
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62(4) 529-533 (1972)

Cited By

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Figures (3)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Figure files are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Equations (67)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Equations are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Select as filters


Select Topics Cancel
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved