Transmission and reflection of laser beams propagating through aerosol clouds in space

A parametric study to evaluate the shielding effectiveness of a cloud of carbonaceous and model aerosols in space against a collimated laser beam is summarized. The modeling is generally based on the small-angle approximation to multiple scattering; for aerosols having a size distribution corresponding to inventory smokes, the diffusion theory is employed. Both the power delivered to the target and the reflected signal are computed as a function of optical depth with the single-scattering albedo varied parametrically in the range from 0.1 to 0.99. The study establishes the importance of multiple-scattering effects when the single-scattering albedo is larger than 0.3.