Aerosol scattering of supercontinuum radiation formed upon femtosecond laser pulse filamentation in the atmosphere

We report numerical calculations of scattering and backscattering efficiency factors of water droplets illuminated by a quasi-white light radiation (a supercontinuum radiation) that results from self-focusing of a high-power femtosecond laser pulse in the atmosphere. The behavior of these integral optical characteristics for a wide range of droplet sizes that covers the size spectra of fog and cloud particles is analyzed. The results are compared to the values of the scattering factors obtained by the Lorentz-Mie theory.