Speakers > Bal Guillaume

A widely accepted conjecture in the physical literature states that classical wave-fields propagating in random media over large distances eventually follow a complex circular Gaussian distribution. In this limit, the wave intensity becomes exponentially distributed, which corroborates the speckle patterns of, e.g., laser light observed in experiments. This talk reports on a recent result settling the conjecture in the weak- coupling, paraxial regime of wave propagation, which is accurate and routinely used in the application of laser light propagation in turbulent atmospheres. The limiting macroscopic Gaussian wave-field is fully characterized by a correlation function that satisfies an unusual diffusion equation. Numerical simulations illustrate the theoretical findings.

This is joint work with Anjali Nair.