title: Optimal beams for propagation through random media.
abstract: The problem of maximizing the intensity that is transferred from a transmitter aperture to a receiver aperture is considered in which the propagation medium is random. Two optimization criteria are considered: maximal expected intensity transfer and minimal scintillation index. The beam that maximizes the expected intensity is shown to be fully coherent. Its coherent mode is determined as the principal eigenfunction for a kernel that is determined through the second-order moments of the propagation Green's function. The beam that minimizes the scintillation index is shown to be partially coherent in general, with its coherent modes determined by minimizing a quadratic form that has nonlinear dependence on the coherent-mode fields, and on the second- and fourth-order moments of the propagation Green's function.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan Tech, Houghton, Michigan 49931-1200, USA. schulz@mtu.edu
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Schulz