PROPAGATION AND SCATTERING OF LIGHT IN FLUCTUATING MEDIA

The monograph deals with the problems of the propagation and scatterin g of light in molecular media. The explicit statistical mechanical ave raging procedure for the equations of electrodynamics is developed. It permits to transform the molecular level description into the macrosc opic one for the electrodynamics of the fluctuating media. In the fram ework of such an approach, the problems of the molecular correlation c ontribution into the dielectric permeability, of the calculation of th e reflection coefficients with an account of surface layers and of the multiple light scattering are considered. The developed theory is app lied to the description of the critical opalescence, the coherent back scattering enhancement, the light scattering depolarization phenomena and the propagation and scattering of light in anisotropic media, incl uding the case of liquid crystals.