Modified Huygens–Fresnel method for the propagation of partially coherent beams through turbulence

Abstract

Partially coherent beams (PCBs) have been extensively studied as a method to mitigate the deleterious effects of atmospheric turbulence for applications such as free-space optical communication. However, it can be difficult to study and assess the performance of PCBs in turbulence due to the complicated physics of the atmosphere and the wide variety of PCBs possible. Here, we introduce a modified approach to study the propagation of second-order field moments of PCBs analytically in turbulence, reformulating the problem in terms of free-space propagation of the beam. We illustrate the method by studying a Gaussian Schell-model beam in turbulence.