Influence of atmospheric fluctuations of the induced temperature on the characteristics of laser radiation

The expression for the function representing the second-order mutual coherence of a laser beam propagating in a turbulent atmosphere under thermal self-interaction conditions is derived in the aberration-free approximation. An analysis is made of the width of a beam, its wind refraction, and the radius of coherence as a function of the initial coherence of the radiation, of conditions of diffraction on the transmitting aperture, and of fluctuations of the wind velocity. It is shown that on increase in the power the coherence radius of cw laser radiation first increases because of thermal defocusing and then decreases due to the appearance (because of fluctuations of the wind velocity) of induced temperature inhomogeneities in air in the beam localization region. The conditions under which fluctuations of the induced temperature have a significant influence on the coherence of the radiation are determined.