Abstract

We have photographed the near-forward crosspolarized scattering pattern from individual bubbles and from bubble clouds in liquids. The bubbles were large in comparison to the wavelength of light. The quasi-periodic structure present for individual gas bubbles is similar to that previously observed for the cross-polarized near-backward glory of bubbles.^1,2 The observed periodicity is in good agreement with a calculation of diffracted glory wave fronts and it is clearly not caused by the ordinary forward diffraction which is copolarized with respect to the illumination. The gas bubbles observed were in water or in silicone oil. The dominant glory wave was associated with the twice-refracted (once-reflected) ray. Although these experiments may be interpreted using a theory which assumes single scattering, the observed polarization phenomena may be helpful in the understanding of scattering from dense bubble clouds where multiple scattering may be significant. The polarization and structure of glory scattering may be useful in inverse problems.

© 1985 Optical Society of America