Abstract

Probability distributions of fluctuating irradiance data from experiments involving light propagation through turbulent air indicate log-normal behavior. Nevertheless, the dependence of the variance upon wave-number, turbulence strength, and propagation distance is predicted reasonably well by calculations that yield a Rice distribution, but not by other calculations based on a log-normal distribution. We suggest that the discrepancy is caused by infrequent high-irradiance fluctuations, and present an approximate solution of the electric field valid only for high irradiance that extends the lower-irradiance distribution into a log-normal tail.

© 1969 Optical Society of America

Perturbed log-normal distribution of irradiance fluctuations*

Ting-i Wang and John W. Strohbehn
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 64(7) 994-999 (1974)

Measurements of three-parameter log-normally distributed optical-field irradiance fluctuations in a turbulent medium*

F. Davidson and A. Gonzalez-del-Valle
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 65(6) 655-663 (1975)

Photon-Count Distributions and Irradiance Fluctuations of a Log-Normally Distributed Light Field*

Van Bluemel, Lorenzo M. Narducci, and Richard A. Tuft
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62(11) 1309-1314 (1972)

Saturation of Irradiance Fluctuations Due to Turbulent Atmosphere

D. A. DeWolf
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 58(4) 461-466 (1968)

Strong irradiance fluctuations in turbulent air: plane waves*

D. A. de Wolf
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 63(2) 171-179 (1973)