Abstract

We have theoretically evaluated aspects of high speed thermal blooming and have found that refractive effects are negligible except for the case of a beam moving at transonic velocities. The density perturbation at Mach I is determined primarily by nonlinear flow field effects induced by heating of the atmosphere. Although the temperature perturbation is very small for a beam moving at sonic velocity, the density perturbation is not. It is approximately 2 orders of magnitude higher than the temperature perturbation. This large increase in the density perturbation is confined to a narrow range of Mach numbers that define a transonic flow in atmospheric propagation. Outside this transonic flow regime, thermal blooming is negligible.

© 1976 Optical Society of America

Thermal Blooming of Rapidly Slued Laser Beams

John N. Hayes
Appl. Opt. 13(9) 2072-2074 (1974)

Stagnation and transonic effects in thermal blooming

J. Alex Thomson, James C. S. Meng, and Frederick P. Boynton
Appl. Opt. 16(2) 355-366 (1977)

Mitigation of thermal blooming by rotating laser beams in the atmosphere

Die Qiu, Boyu Tian, He Ting, Zheqiang Zhong, and Bin Zhang
Appl. Opt. 60(27) 8458-8465 (2021)

Thermal Blooming of Laser Beams in Fluids

John N. Hayes
Appl. Opt. 11(2) 455-461 (1972)

Propagation of laser beams having an on-axis null in the presence of thermal blooming*

J. E. Pearson, C. Yeh, and W. P. Brown
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 66(12) 1384-1388 (1976)