SCATTERING OF A GAUSSIAN-BEAM BY AN INFINITE CYLINDER IN THE FRAMEWORK OF GENERALIZED LORENZ-MIE THEORY - FORMULATION AND NUMERICAL RESULTS

We study the scattering of Gaussian beams by infinite cylinders in the framework of the so-called generalized Lorenz-Mie theory for cylinder s. The general theory is expressed by using the theory of distribution s. Several descriptions of the illuminating Gaussian beams are conside red-i.e., Maxwellian beams at limited order, quasi-Gaussian beams defi ned by a plane-wave spectrum, and the cylindrical localized approximat ion-leading to different specific formulations. In the last two cases, the theory in terms of distributions reduces to theories expressed in terms of usual functions. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.