Effect of the atmospheric turbulence on a special correlated radially polarized beam on propagation

• Analytical l expressions for BCP matrix of a SCRP beam in atmosphere are derived.
• The statistical properties of the SCRP beam are studied and discussed.
• The effects of turbulence on statistical properties of a SCRP beam are studied.

A special correlated radially polarized beam (Phys. Rev. A 89, 013801, 2014) was introduced and demonstrated in experiment recently. In this paper, we investigate the statistical properties of a special correlated radially polarized (SCRP) beam in atmospheric turbulence. Analytical formulas for the average intensity distribution (AID), degree of polarization (DOP) and degree of coherence (DOC) are derived by adopting a beam coherence-polarization (BCP) matrix. With the help of the derived formulas, the evolutions of the AID, DOP and DOC of the SCRP beam in turbulent atmosphere are illustrated through numerical examples in detail, and the results are compared to those of a partially coherent radially polarized (PCRP) beam under equivalent condition. It reveals that the propagation properties of the SCRP beam is much different from those of the PCRP beam in atmosphere, and closely related to the strength of the turbulence and the beam parameters.