STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION OF INTENSITIES REFLECTED FROM DISORDERED MEDIA

A theoretical analysis of the statistical distributions of the reflect ed intensities from random media is presented. We use random matrix th eory to analytically deduce the probability densities in the localizat ion regime. Numerical calculations of the coupling to backward modes i n surface corrugated waveguides are also put forward for comparison. I nterestingly, the speckle distributions are found to be independent of the transport regime. Despite the scattering being highly nonisotropi c, the predicted probability densities reproduce accurately the numeri cal results. [S0031-9007(98)06550-8].