INTENSITY STATISTICS AND CORRELATION IN ABSORBING RANDOM-MEDIA

Measurements of the distribution of normalized intensity of a single polarization component of microwave radiation transmitted through absorbing random dielectric samples contained in a copper tube are fit by an expression derived by Shnerb and Kaveh in the weak-correlation limit for non-dissipative systems. We show that the single parameter in the theory is one-half the degree of long-range correlation which is the inverse of the dimensionless conductance. The equivalence of these parameters and their weak dependence upon absorption suggests that the proximity to the localization threshold is nearly independent of absorption for extended waves. Systematic departures of calculated moments from the measured values indicate the contribution of higher-order corrections to the intensity distribution.