Abstract

We have reanalyzed a selection of data obtained from laser scintillation experiments in the light of recent criticisms of analysis techniques based on the moments of the data. In agreement with those criticisms, we find that comparing the higher moments of the data with those of model distributions can produce misleading results. We therefore use a least-squares fitting method to compare directly the experimental probability distributions with the models. The conclusion of the earlier experiments, that the K distribution is generally better than the log-normal distribution in the strong-scintillation regime, however, is not changed by the new analysis.

© 1989 Optical Society of America

Joint probability-density function of irradiance scintillations in the turbulent atmosphere

James H. Churnside
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 6(12) 1931-1940 (1989)

Log-normal Rician probability-density function of optical scintillations in the turbulent atmosphere

James H. Churnside and Steven F. Clifford
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 4(10) 1923-1930 (1987)

Probability density of irradiance scintillations for strong path-integrated refractive turbulence

James H. Churnside and R. J. Hill
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 4(4) 727-733 (1987)

Probability-density functions of irradiance for waves in atmospheric turbulence calculated by numerical simulation

Stanley M. Flatté, Charles Bracher, and Guang-Yu Wang
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11(7) 2080-2092 (1994)

Probability density function estimation of laser light scintillation via Bayesian mixtures

Eric X. Wang, Svetlana Avramov-Zamurovic, Richard J. Watkins, Charles Nelson, and Reza Malek-Madani
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 31(3) 580-590 (2014)