A method of generating a random optical field using the Karhunen-Loeve expansion to simulate atmospheric turbulence

Abstract

It is proposed to use the random field generation in the numerical simulation of the propagation of radiation through a random medium using method based on the Karhunen–Loeve expansion with various types of correlation operators to describe turbulence simulators. The properties of the calculated simulators of a random medium with a Gaussian correlation function were investigated in modeling the propagation of Laguerre-Gaussian vortex beams. The simulation results showed that an increase in the order of the optical vortex leads, as in the experiment, to lower stability of the phase singularity of the beams to random optical fluctuations. The similarity of the simulation results and the optical experiments indicates the promise of the proposed approach for the synthesis of random environment simulators.

Keywords

• correlation operator
• eigenfunctions
• karhunen-loeve expansion
• random optical medium simulator