Wave optics approach for incoherent imaging simulation through distributed turbulence

Abstract

An approach is presented for numerically simulating incoherent imaging using coherent wave optics propagation methods. The approach employs averaging of irradiance from uncorrelated coherent waves to produce incoherent results. Novel aspects of the method include 1) the exploitation of a spatial windowing feature in the wave optics numerical propagator to limit the angular spread of the light and 2) a simple propagation scaling concept to avoid aliased field components after the focusing element. Classical linear systems theory is commonly used to simulate incoherent imaging when it is possible to incorporate aberrations and/or propagation medium characteristics into an optical transfer function (OTF). However, the technique presented here is useful for investigating situations such as “instantaneous” short-exposure imaging through distributed turbulence and phenomena like anisoplanatism that are not easily modeled with the typical linear systems theory. The relationships between simulation variables such as spatial sampling, source and aperture support, and intermediate focal plane are discussed and the requirement or benefits of choosing these in certain ways are demonstrated.