Propagation of the two-frequency coherence function in an inhomogeneous background random medium

The spatial and temporal structures of time-dependent signals can be appreciably affected by random changes of the parameters of the medium characteristic of almost all geophysical environments. The dispersive properties of random media cause distortions in the propagating signal, particularly in pulse broadening and time delay. When there is also spatial variation of the background refractive index, the observer can be accessed by a number of background rays. In order to compute the pulse characteristics along each separate ray, there is a need to know the behaviour of the two-frequency mutual coherence function. In this work, we formulate the equation of the two-frequency mutual coherence function along a curved background ray trajectory. To solve this equation, a recently developed reference-wave method is applied. This method is based on embedding the problem into a higher dimensional space and is accompanied by the introduction of additional coordinates. Choosing a proper transform of the extended coordinate system allows us to emphasize 'fast' and 'slow' varying coordinates which are consequently normalized to the scales specific to a given type of problem. Such scaling usually reveals the important expansion parameters defined as ratios of the characteristic scales and allows us to present the proper ordering of terms in the desired equation. The performance of the main order solution is demonstrated for the homogeneous background case when the transverse structure function of the medium can be approximated by a quadratic term.