Abstract

Using a Gaussian weighting function for the receiver aperture, we obtain a closed-form representation for the receiver-aperture averaging effect for the intensity fluctuation of a beam wave in the turbulent atmosphere. It is shown that, unlike for the plane-wave case, the power scintillations do not always decrease when the receiver aperture is increased. The reasons are that (1) the intensity fluctuations on the axis for a coherent beam-wave source are smaller than these off the axis and (2) the averaging effect cannot show up when the total beam is within a coherent patch (i.e., the coherence length is larger than the beamwidth).

© 1983 Optical Society of America

Beam-intensity fluctuations in atmospheric turbulence

J. Carl Leader
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 71(5) 542-558 (1981)

Intensity fluctuations due to a spatially partially coherent source in atmospheric turbulence as predicted by Rytov’s method

Y. Baykal and M. A. Plonus
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 2(12) 2124-2132 (1985)

Aperture averaging effects on the probability density of irradiance fluctuations in moderate-to-strong turbulence

Frida Strömqvist Vetelino, Cynthia Young, Larry Andrews, and Jaume Recolons
Appl. Opt. 46(11) 2099-2108 (2007)

Atmospheric optical communication with a Gaussian Schell beam

Jennifer C. Ricklin and Frederic M. Davidson
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 20(5) 856-866 (2003)

Effects of aperture averaging and beam width on a partially coherent Gaussian beam over free-space optical links with turbulence and pointing errors

It Ee Lee, Zabih Ghassemlooy, Wai Pang Ng, Mohammad-Ali Khalighi, and Shien-Kuei Liaw
Appl. Opt. 55(1) 1-9 (2016)