Effect of oceanic turbulence on the visibility of underwater ghost imaging.

Abstract

We carry out a detailed study on underwater ghost imaging (GI) in oceanic turbulence. We set up a physical model of GI through oceanic turbulence, which includes light-field transmission, and interaction between light field and oceanic turbulence without considering the effects of water absorption and scattering of light. We obtain theoretical expressions for the impulse response function and the visibility of GI in oceanic turbulence based on the power spectrum of the turbulence and the extended Huygens-Fresnel integral. The results show that the quality of GI under the effects of oceanic turbulence is related to the intensity of turbulence and the propagation distance of light. The quality of GI could be maintained at a relatively small distance in strong oceanic turbulence, whereas the quality is degraded dramatically at a relatively long distance in strong oceanic turbulence. We further analyze the quality of GI under various turbulence conditions and over different propagation distances by numerical calculation. Our results provide guidance for the realization of adaptive underwater optical GI over different length scales under the effect of oceanic turbulence.