Model of the light-beam fluctuations in a turbid medium with randomly nonuniform absorption

We study theoretically the light-field fluctuations in a turbid medium with strongly anisotropic scattering and randomly nonuniform distribution of an absorbing material. Analytical models of the correlation functions of the relative fluctuations of brightness and irradiation in the wide and narrow light beams are developed. Dependences of the variance and the correlation scales of the relative fluctuations of brightness and irradiation on the scattering characteristics and the absorption-index fluctuations are analyzed. Distinctive features of the correlation characteristics of the narrow and wide light beams are revealed. __________ Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 49, No. 9, pp. 799–815, September 2006.