EFFECTS OF GLOBAL INTERMITTENCY ON LASER PROPAGATION IN THE ATMOSPHERE

The statistical description of atmospheric turbulence and laser propag ation through the atmosphere is complicated by global intermittency, t he slow variations in space and time of the basic turbulence parameter s. The effects of global intermittency of atmospheric turbulence on th e mutual coherence function and the irradiance spectrum are investigat ed with numerical simulation. The effects of global intermittency are negligible when the path length is of the order of 10 correlation scal es of global intermittency. This condition is readily satisfied for ty pical atmospheric parameters. The higher moments of irradiance appear to be more sensitive to the effects of global intermittency.