Spatiotemporal statistics of optical turbulence beyond Taylor’s frozen turbulence hypothesis

Abstract

Currently, limitations in modeling the temporal behavior of light propagating through atmospheric turbulence stem from the Taylor’s frozen turbulence hypothesis (TFTH). Indeed, under certain conditions it has been reported to be unreliable, often leading to inaccurate predictions. On the other hand, in fluid dynamics an alternative has been validated: the random sweeping hypothesis. Nevertheless, its applicability to optical turbulence has remained unexplored. This work introduces the first, to the best of our knowledge, controlled experiment testing this hypothesis on the spatiotemporal properties from image wander. The existence of two characteristic times is observed, one associated with TFTH decorrelation and a second potentially linked to the sweeping hypothesis.