Abstract
The Earth’s atmosphere is the living environment in which we live and cannot escape. Atmospheric turbulence is a typical random inhomogeneous medium, which causes random fluctuations of both the amplitude and phase of optical wave propagating through it. Currently, it is widely accepted that there exists two kinds of turbulence in the aerosphere: one is Kolmogorov turbulence, and the other is non-Kolmogorov turbulence, which have been confirmed by both increasing experimental evidence and theoretical investigations. The results of atmospheric measurements have shown that the structure of atmospheric turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere is composed of Kolmogorov turbulence at lower levels and non-Kolmogorov turbulence at higher levels. Since the time of Newton, people began to study optical wave propagation in atmospheric turbulence. In the early stage, optical wave propagation in Kolmogorov atmospheric turbulence was mainly studied and then optical wave propagation in non-Kolmogorov atmospheric turbulence was also studied. After more than half a century of efforts, the study of optical wave propagation in atmospheric turbulence has made great progress, and the theoretical results are also used to guide practical applications. On this basis, we summarize the development status and latest progress of propagation theory in atmospheric turbulence, mainly including propagation theory in conventional Kolmogorov turbulence and one in non-Kolmogorov atmospheric turbulence. In addition, the combined influence of Kolmogorov and non-Kolmogorov turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere on optical wave propagation is also summarized. This timely summary is very necessary and is of great significance for various applications and development in the aerospace field, where the Earth’s atmosphere is one part of many links.
Highlights
It is well known that the Earth’s atmosphere is a typical random inhomogeneous medium that contains two kinds of medium: one is a discrete turbid atmospheric medium composed of particles, and the other is a “continuous” turbulent atmospheric medium composed of thermally moving molecules
The results showed that the statistical law of turbulent field in this region was inconsistent with the Kolmogorov turbulence model, and there was a −5 power spectrum [11]
We review the experimental and theoretical results of atmospheric turbulence and present the structure of atmospheric turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere
Summary
It is well known that the Earth’s atmosphere is a typical random inhomogeneous medium that contains two kinds of medium: one is a discrete turbid atmospheric medium composed of particles, and the other is a “continuous” turbulent atmospheric medium composed of thermally moving molecules. In 1941, Kolmogorov, a former Soviet mathematician, established the statistical theory of turbulent velocity field based on the Richardson cascade model and by using a dimensional analysis method. In an atmospheric turbulent field, the random change of velocity inevitably results in a random change of other physical quantities in space and time, such as temperature and refractive index. It is currently known that , in addition to the classical Kolmogorov spectrum, other types of spectra appear at different scales depending on external conditions They constructed a unified physical method to develop a generalized model of electromagnetic radiation propagation in a random atmosphere by taking into account the behavior characteristics of PSF under different conditions at different scales [4]. The existence of non-Kolmogorov turbulence was proved theoretically and above all, other theoretical studies have further confirmed this conclusion
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