A critical survey of approximate scattering wave theories from random rough surfaces

TLDR

The review surveys analytical approximate methods for scattering from random rough surfaces, providing a critical and up‑to‑date overview. It outlines the underlying principles, functional forms of scattering amplitudes or cross‑sections, and distinguishes scalar acoustic from vector electromagnetic theories, while directing readers to original papers for explicit expressions. The authors identify strengths and weaknesses of the theories and present synthetic tables summarizing their performance against key requirements.

Abstract

Abstract This review is intended to provide a critical and up-to-date survey of the analytical approximate methods that are encountered in scattering from random rough surfaces. The underlying principles of the different methods are evidenced and the functional form of the corresponding scattering amplitude or cross-section is given. The reader is referred to the original papers in order to obtain the explicit expressions of the coefficients and kernels. We have tried to identify the main strengths and weaknesses of the various theories. We provide synthetic tables of their respective performances, according to a dozen important requirements a valuable method should meet. Both scalar acoustic and vector electromagnetic theories are equally addressed.