General remarks concerning theories dealing with scattering and diffraction in random media

Abstract

The theories to be considered in this review deal mostly with the effect of random media on the propagation of electromagnetic or other waves traversing them. The purpose aimed at thus consists of finding connections between the statistical properties of these waves and the given statistical properties of the medium itself. The characteristics of this medium are to be fixed by one or more wave equations or by equivalent dispersion relations. The waves may be investigated as such, considering the wave function Ψ(r, t ) of one or more associated scalar or vector components, or, more generally, the theory may refer to related quantities, e.g., the squared modulus |Ψ| 2 which fixes an energy density or, as in quantum mechanics, a probability density.