Numerical simulations and analytic approximations of transmission through a random medium (Q1095693)

In this paper, the transmission of a normally incident plane wave through a stochastically layered medium is investigated. When the refractive index and thickness of each layer are independent, identically distributed random variables, it is shown that the logarithm of the transmission coefficient, ln\(| T|\), normalized by the number of layers, N, converges to a constant, as \(N\to \infty\). In fact, ln\(| T| /N\) is normally distributed with variance proportional to 1/N. Approximate expressions for the mean and the variance of the distribution of ln\(| T| /N\) are derived for small, random variations of the refractive index and verified using Monte Carlo simulations.