Presented by Dr. Mark Spencer

Decades of outstanding research has led to an increased understanding of the underlying physics associated with deep turbulence. As a result, this colloquium provides a “cheat sheet” that parameterizes the limitations of deep turbulence. Such a cheat sheet, for example, helps in comprehending recent compensation and imaging results. This colloquium will present these results in terms of the isoplanatic angle, Fried coherence diameter, Rytov number, and Greenwood frequency. Such parameters manifest from integrals involving the path-dependent refractive index structure parameter, C_n²(z). In units of m^-2/3, researchers often use C_n²(z) as a way to gauge the strength of the turbulence. However, the distributed-volume nature of deep turbulence requires that researchers also solve these so-called path integrals to fully appreciate the underlying physics.

Bio: Dr. Mark Spencer is currently the Directed Energy Staff Specialist at Headquarters US Indo-Pacific Command as a liaison from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Directed Energy Directorate. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Optical Sciences and Engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology within the Department of Engineering Physics. Mark is a fellow of SPIE and is a senior member of Optica.

LOCATION
Meinel 307