Distribution of illumination from a narrow light beam in a turbid atmosphere

An analysis is presented of the illumination distribution in the cross section of an infinitely narrow unidirectional light beam in a polydisperse water aerosol as a function of the microstructure of the disperse medium, its optical thickness, and the distribution of the light-scattering characteristics of the medium along the beam propagation path. The scattered-light field is calculated on the basis of the Monte Carlo method with the use of the small-angle and single-scattering approximations. Attention is given to the possibility of using approximation methods to calculate the characteristics of a scattered field from a narrow beam propagating on an inhomogeneous path in a polydisperse medium.