Propagation of laser radiation in randomly inhomogeneous media

Abstract

A review is given of recent investigations of the propagation of laser radiation in randomly inhomogeneous media with large-scale fluctuations of the refractive index. The review is mainly concerned with aspects of the correlation theory of fluctuations of the intensity of radiation traveling over long distances when the effects of multiple scattering become important. Considerable attention is paid to the results relating to the broadening of laser beams and to phase fluctuations. The relatively new, but important in practice, subject of spatial intensity peaks is discussed. Whenever possible, the theoretical results are compared systematically with the experimental data. The analytic methods discussed in the review are applicable to a wide class of stochastic and dynamic partial differential equations and they may be of interest in other branches of physics.