Abstract The phase-screen (split-step) method is widely used for modeling wave propagation in inhomogeneous media. The method of plane phase screens is best known. However, for modeling a 2D problem of radio occultation sounding of the Earth’s atmosphere, the method of cylindrical phase screen was developed many years ago. In this paper, we propose a further generalization of this method for the 3D problem on the basis of spherical phase screens. In the paraxial approximation, we derive the formula for the vacuum screen-to-screen propagator. We also infer the expression for the phase thickness of a thin layer of aisotropic random media. We describe a numerical implementation of this method and give numerical examples of its application for modeling a diverging laser beam propagating on a 25-km-long atmospheric path.

中文翻译：

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用于模拟非均匀介质中发散光束传播的球相屏幕方法

摘要 相位屏蔽（分步）法广泛用于模拟非均匀介质中的波传播。平面相位屏的方法最为人所知。然而，为了模拟地球大气无线电掩星探测的 2D 问题，多年前开发了圆柱相位屏幕的方法。在本文中，我们在球形相位屏幕的基础上提出了该方法对 3D 问题的进一步推广。在近轴近似中，我们推导出真空屏幕到屏幕传播器的公式。我们还推断出各向异性随机介质薄层的相厚度表达式。我们描述了该方法的数值实现，并给出了其在 25 公里长的大气路径上传播的发散激光束建模应用的数值示例。