Optical phase under deep turbulence conditions

The Markov approximation for waves in random media specifies that, under strong scintillation conditions, the optical field of unbounded waves has a normal probability distribution with zero mean. Using the coherence function provided by the Markov approximation, we calculate statistics of the phase of the optical field that accounts for the presence of multiple phase dislocations. We also develop and test a Monte Carlo model that generates the phase samples obeying these statistics. In contrast to numerous phase models described in the literature, this model generates discontinuous phase samples that contain optical vortices. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America