COMPARATIVE-ANALYSIS OF THE PROPAGATION OF LIGHT RADIATION IN 2-D AND3-D MEDIA - I - TRANSMISSION OF LIGHT RADIATION THROUGH WEAKLY ABSORBING MEDIA WITH LARGE-SCALE SCATTERERS

In this paper, we present a review and comparative analysis of the pro pagation of scalar laser radiation in disordered 2-D and 3-D media Our main attention is focused on the propagation of radiation in media wi th large-scale las compared with the wavelength of light) scatterers, when the total scattering angle remains small despite substantially mu ltiple scattering. We analyze only the standard small-angle approximat ion, when one can neglect fluctuations of the path lengths caused by s cattering. Various single-scattering laws (Gaussian, Rutherford, expon ential, and others) are considered. The correspondence between the sma ll-angle scattering phase functions in 2-D and 3-D media is revealed. We propose a new two-parameter scattering phase function of the genera lized exponential type, which includes exponential and sea-scattering phase functions as particular cases.