Exact spread function for a pulsed collimated beam in a medium with small-angle scattering.

A solution has been obtained for the spatial and temporal distribution function for a pulsed fully collimated beam propagating through a homogeneous medium with Gaussian small-angle scattering. The solution was obtained first by separation of the general problem into two plane problems, which results in a partial differential equation in three variables. A Fourier transform on two projected variables (one angular and one spatial) and a Laplace transform on the projected temporal variable yielded a set of nonlinear differential equations, which were solved. A recursion relation for the moments of the distribution function was also obtained, and the software MATHEMATICA was used to evaluate these moments to high orders. The contractions on certain variables are also presented; they correspond to the solutions of less-general problems contained in the main problem. A change in the definition of the time-delay produces a remarkable change in the structure of the equations. These solutions should be quite useful for lidar studies in atmospheric and oceanic optics, x-ray and radio-wave scattering in the atmosphere and interstellar medium, and in medical physics.