60th ANNIVERSARY OF THE L.D. LANDAU INSTITUTE FOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS, RAS. REVIEWS OF TOPICAL PROBLEMS

High intensity statistics of light propagating in turbulent fluid

I. V. Kolokolov^ab, V. V. Lebedev<sup>ab

a</sup> Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Chernogolovka, Moscow region,
^b National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow

Abstract: We present an investigation of the statistical properties of light propagation in a turbulent fluid. Our focus is on the probability density function of the intensity $I$ for different values of $I$ and the beam's path length. The probability density function $P(I)$ exhibits two tails, characterized by stretched exponents, indicating that the likelihood of rare events with intensities much higher than the typical value is significantly higher than naive Gaussian estimates would suggest. We present an analysis of the spatial structure of high-intensity bursts of light.

Keywords: electromagnetic wave propagation, turbulent media, rare events, bright speckles

PACS: 41.20.Jb, 42.25.Dd, 92.60.Ta

Received: March 24, 2025
Revised: May 17, 2025
Accepted: May 27, 2025

DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.2025.05.039934

 English version: Physics–Uspekhi, 2025, 68:11, 1112–1130

Bibliographic databases:

• 
•