Polarization changes of partially-coherent Airy-Gaussian beams in a slanted turbulent atmosphere

Investigating polarization changes in a turbulent atmosphere holds great significance because polarization is one of the most important parameters in laser communication. Based on the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle and the unified theory of coherence and polarization, an analytical expression for the degree of polarization (DoP) in partially-coherent Airy-Gaussian beams propagating in a slanted turbulent atmosphere is derived. It is then used to study the dependence of polarization changes in turbulent parameter, coherence length, zenith angle, truncation and distribution factor. The polarization between the slanted and horizontal paths is also compared. Compared with horizontal turbulence, the beams traverse a longer distance to recover their initial polarization in slanted turbulence. An increase in the zenith angle, receiving height and truncation factor, or a decrease in the coherence length can increase the DoP. A smaller distribution factor or a higher coherence length is beneficial to reducing the effect of the zenith angle on the polarization. Analysis of the influence of the distribution factor on polarization also shows that maintaining the polarization of a Gaussian beam with higher coherence in a horizontally turbulent atmosphere has a greater advantage to that of a pure Airy beam from the view of keeping polarization invariance. The results show that optical information encoding can be achieved by selecting appropriate parameters, which is useful for studying atmospheric communication.