Abstract
Starting with the recently introduced phase correlation function of a general-type beam, the angle-of-arrival fluctuations are derived and evaluated in atmospheric turbulence for lowest-order Gaussian, cos-Gaussian, cosh-Gaussian, annular, and flat-topped beams. Our motivation is to examine the improvement in the performance of optical atmospheric links when such beams are employed. For these beams, the dependence of the angle-of-arrival fluctuations on the propagation length, displacement and focusing parameters, source size, inner and outer scales of turbulence, and receiver radius is investigated. It is found that in the majority of the cases examined, the angle-of-arrival fluctuations remain small and hence are not expected to adversely affect the operation of free-space atmospheric links. It is observed that amongst the beams considered, the cos-Gaussian beam offers the least amount of angle-of-arrival fluctuations, while the worst behavior is exhibited by the cosh-Gaussian beam. This situation is reversed, however, if focused beams are used.
