Turbulence-induced changes in degree of polarization, degree of coherence and spectrum of partially coherent electromagnetic beams

Based on a recently formulated unified theory of coherenceand polarization, a method is described to study turbulence-inducedchanges in the polarization, the coherence and the spectrum ofpartially coherent electromagnetic beams on propagation. Theelectromagnetic Gaussian Schell-model beam is taken as a typicalexample of partially coherent electromagnetic beams, and theclosed-form expressions for the degree of polarization, the degreeof coherence and the spectrum of electromagnetic GaussianSchell-model beams propagating through atmospheric turbulence arederived in the quadratic approximation of Rytov's phase structurefunction. Some interesting results are obtained, which areillustrated by numerical examples and are explained in physics.