Optical orbital angular momentum under strong scintillation

The evolution of classical optical fields propagating through atmospheric turbulence is investigated under arbitrary conditions. We use the single-phase screen (SPS) method and the infinitesimal propagation equation (IPE), a multiphase screen (MPS) method, to compute the optical power fractions retained in an input Laguerre-Gauss (LG) mode or transferred to higher-order LG modes. Although they show the same trend while the scintillation is weak, the IPE and SPS predictions deviate when the strength of scintillation passes a certain threshold. These predictions are compared with numerical simulations of optical fields propagating through turbulence. The simulations are performed using an MPS model, based on the Kolmogorov theory of turbulence, for different turbulence conditions to allow comparison in both weak and strong scintillation. The numerical results agree well with the IPE results in all conditions, but they deviate from the SPS results for strong scintillation.