The influence of the vortex phase on the random wandering of a Laguerre–Gaussian beam propagating in a turbulent atmosphere: a numerical experiment

A numerical experiment is used to study the variance of the wandering of a Laguerre–Gaussian laser beam propagating in a turbulent atmosphere. It is shown that a laser beam with an initial intensity distribution coinciding with that of the Laguerre–Gaussian beam but not having a vortex phase distribution is less resistant to the action of atmospheric turbulence than the Laguerre–Gaussian beam except in the near diffraction zone. The regularities of the beam wandering associated with the values of the azimuth and radial indices of the beam as well as with the intensity and the outer scale of the turbulence are determined. (paper)