Reference-wave solutions for high-frequency fields propagating in random media

Ray theory plays an important role in determining the propagation properties of high-frequency fields and their statistical measures in complicated random environments. According to the ray approach, the field at the observer can be synthesized from a variety of field species arriving along multiple ray trajectories resulting from refraction and scattering from boundaries and from scattering centers embedded in the random medium. For computations of the statistical measures, it is desirable therefore to possess a solution for the high-frequency field propagating along an isolated ray trajectory. For this reason, a new reference-wave method was developed to provide an analytic solution of the parabolic-wave equation.