Experimental study and numerical simulation of laser beams propagation through the turbulent aerojet

A detailed experimental study of spatial characteristics for laser beams propagating through the turbulent aerojet has been performed. The obtained results for radiation wavelengths of 0.53, 1.06, and 10.6 microm were used for the development of the numerical mathematical model for beam propagation through an extreme turbulent medium. The combination of parameters and algorithms for the numerical model was determined, which made it possible to obtain computational laser beam spatial characteristics that agreed quite well with the experimental data. Good agreement between the results points to the possibility, in principle, to regard the central jet area as a medium locally homogeneous in the statistical sense and anisotropic on the turbulent outer scales.