Cn2 profile characterization from wavefront sensing in moderate turbulence

Atmospheric turbulence degrades the optical resolution of long range imagers and the capacity to properly focus a laser beam on a target. Assessing accurate C²n profiles along the propagation line of sight yields crucial insights for tailoring adaptive optics control strategies and image processing techniques that can mitigate the effects of the atmospheric turbulence. The SCO-SLIDAR method can estimate C²n profiles by exploiting both wavefront slope and scintillation correlations recorded simultaneously with a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor on a point source. In this paper, we present an experimental application of the SCO-SLIDAR method for turbulence profiling under near-ground, horizontal observation conditions. Using Shack-Hartmann (SH) slope and intensity measurements from unresolved sources in different directions, we reconstructed C²n turbulence profiles that showed consistency across all directions. To validate the reliability of our approach, we compared macroscopic turbulence parameters (r₀ and σ²χ ) derived from the measured profiles with those calculated directly from the SH data. The good agreement for both r₀ and σ²χ confirms the technique's ability to accurately estimate the integral of the profile and distant turbulent layers, respectively. These results provide a solid foundation for future work aimed at experimentally validating anisoplanatism error in endo-atmospheric environments.