EVOLUTION OF BEAM QUALITY AND SHAPE OF HERMITE-GAUSSIAN BEAM IN NON-KOLMOGOROV TURBULENCE

There are many applications of beam quality and beam shape in turbulent atmosphere. Because M2 factor and kurtosis parameters are often used to descripe beam quality and intensity flatness, the evolution of these two parameters of Hermite-Gaussian beam in turbulent atmosphere have been studied in both theory and numerical calculation. Results show that the spectrum of refractive index fluctuations has a strong effect on these two parameters. For some spectral models, these two parameters are very sensitive to some factors of turbulence. But for other spectral models, the factor is very insensitive to these factors. For example, when the exponent of the spectrum is very small, M2 factor is very insensitive to the outer scale of turbulence. But when the exponent of the spectrum is very large, the M2 factor is very insensitive to the inner scale. In addition, we also found that there are many differences between the kurtosis parameters under different conditions. For example, the kurtosis parameters may be very large during propagation. Namely, beam shape may be very sharp under some conditions. When the effects of turbulence is very large or very small, beam shape is very flat.