TM plane wave scattering and diffraction from a randomly rough half-plane: (part II) An evaluation of the diffraction kernel

Abstract

In a previous paper (part I), it has been shown that a random wavefield from a randomly rough half-plane for a TM plane wave incidence is written in terms of a Wiener-Hermite expansion with three types of Fourier integrals. This paper studies a concrete representation of the random wavefield by an approximate evaluation of such Fourier integrals, and statistical properties of scattering and diffraction. For a Gaussian roughness spectrum, intensities of the coherent wavefield and the first-order incoherent wavefield are calculated and shown in figures. It is then found that the coherent scattering intensity decreases in the illumination side, but is almost invariant in the shadow side. The incoherent scattering intensity spreads widely in the illumination side, and have ripples at near the grazing angle. Moreover, a major peak at near the antispecular direction, and associated ripples appear in the shadow side. The incoherent scattering intensity increases rapidly at near the random half-plane. These new phenomena for the incoherent scattering are caused by couplings between TM guided waves supported by a slightly random surface and edge diffracted waves excited by a plane wave incidence or by free guided waves on a flat plane without any roughness.