Some physical insights into beam propagation in strong turbulence

In this paper we examine some of the physical implications of using the extended Huygens‐Fresnel principle to calculate laser beam properties in strong turbulence. We shall demonstrate the roles played by the log‐amplitude and phase fluctuations and will show that quadratic phase structure functions lead to results incompatible with experimental data. We shall also prove that the Huygens‐Fresnel principle automatically predicts a normalized irradiance variance of unity and Gaussian field statistics in strong turbulence provided that certain conditions on the turbulence strength and spectrum are satisfied.