Abstract

The power spectrum is formulated for the time-dependent expansion coefficients of Zernike polynomials of a wavefront distorted by atmospheric turbulence. This expression is shown to be more general than that derived by Hogge and Butts. The low-frequency asymptotic results are examined along with the effects of the outer scale of turbulence and propagation distance. The integrated power spectra are plotted against the bandwidth for several low-order correcting modes. These graphs are then used to study the combined effect of transverse wind and finite bandwidth on the MTF and irradiance profile at the receiver plane for a phase-compensated Gaussian beam. It is shown that the major effect of low bandwidth is to increase the beam spread and that the phase compensation is slightly less effective along the wind direction.

© 1979 Optical Society of America

Modal compensation of atmospheric turbulence phase distortion*

J. Y. Wang and J. K. Markey
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 68(1) 78-87 (1978)

Phase-compensated optical beam propagation through atmospheric turbulence

J. Y. Wang
Appl. Opt. 17(16) 2580-2590 (1978)

Modal compensation of atmospheric turbulence induced wave front aberrations

Joseph Winocur
Appl. Opt. 21(3) 433-438 (1982)

Spatial correlation of phase-expansion coefficients for propagation through atmospheric turbulence

George C. Valley and Stephen M. Wandzura
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 69(5) 712-717 (1979)

Modal wave-front estimation from phase derivative measurements

Ronald Cubalchini
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 69(7) 972-977 (1979)