Abstract
The problem of fluctuations of the laser radiation field retroreflected from a target in a turbulent atmosphere is formulated based on the equations of statistical moments of the location Green function. The asymptotic methods for solving the above equations were used to investigate spatial coherence, mean value, and normalized variance and covariance of retroreflected radiation intensity in the case of weak and strong turbulence. The reflections of plane and spherical waves from a mirror and a diffuse target were considered. It is ascertained that, in some cases, the scales of the mutual coherence function of the retroreflected field were statistically inhomogeneous. The effect of amplification of fluctuation intensity is the strongest for a point reflector. The level of the residual covariance strongly depends on the field at the transmitting aperture, the type of the target, and its dimensions.
© 1984 Optical Society of America
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