Intensity fluctuations of waves in random media: what is the semiclassical limit?

Item Type:	Article
Title:	Intensity fluctuations of waves in random media: what is the semiclassical limit?
Creators Name:	Metzger, J.J. and Fleischmann, R. and Geisel, T.
Abstract:	Waves traveling through weakly random media are known to be strongly affected by their corresponding ray dynamics, in particular in forming linear freak waves. The ray intensity distribution, which, e.g., quantifies the probability of freak waves is unknown, however, and a theory of how it is approached in an appropriate semiclassical limit of wave mechanics is lacking. We show that this limit is not the usual limit of small wavelengths, but that of decoherence. Our theory, which can describe the intensity distribution for an arbitrary degree of coherence is relevant to a wide range of physical systems, as decoherence is omnipresent in real systems.
Keywords:	Random Processes, Electrodynamics, Probability Distributions, Quantum Theory, Waves, Arbitrary Degree, Intensity Distribution, Intensity Fluctuations, Physical Systems, Real Systems, Semiclassical Limit, Wave Mechanics, Waves in Random Media
Source:	Physical Review Letters
ISSN:	0031-9007
Publisher:	American Physical Society
Volume:	111
Number:	1
Page Range:	013901
Date:	5 July 2013
Official Publication:	https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.013901
PubMed:	View item in PubMed

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