Propagation of a radially polarized partially coherent rotating elliptical cosine-Gaussian beam with vortices in anisotropic turbulence

Abstract

Optical vortices in anisotropic turbulence media can exhibit propagation dynamics similar to hydrodynamic vortex phenomena. We theoretically research the propagation of higher-order vortices and the polarization characteristic of the radially polarized partially coherent rotating elliptical Gaussian vortex (PCRECGV) beam. We demonstrate that the vortices can change the shape, the pattern and the polarization of the radially polarized PCRECGV beam during the transmission. The peak intensity of the radially polarized PCRECGV beam with various structure constants of the turbulence is elucidated. The influences of the rotation parameter, the beam order parameter, and the initial beam waist on the propagation of a radially polarized PCRECGV beam in anisotropic turbulence are also examined in detail. We find that during the transmission, the vortices in the beam gradually split into multiple vortices and then the vortices of beamlets annihilate as the propagating distance increases. Meanwhile, when the transmission distance is large enough, the radially polarized PCRECGV beam rotates about $$90^{\circ }$$ during the propagation. By choosing appropriate parameters of the beam, we can adjust the propagation pattern to the one desired and control the spectral polarization states so as to alleviate the influence of the anisotropic turbulence effectively. The numerical experiments are consistent with the analytic solutions. Our paper provides some cases of one to five vortices in different locations, while the different patterns can be extrapolated to more situations.