REFLECTION OF PULSED ELECTROMAGNETIC-WAVES FROM A RANDOMLY STRATIFIED HALF-SPACE

We consider the reflection of temporally pulsed electromagnetic waves from a weakly dispersive and dissipative, randomly stratified half-space. The incident pulse width is chosen to be short relative to deterministic back-ground variations in the constitutive parameters but broad relative to the rapid, fine-scale random fluctuations in these parameter values. We study both plane-wave excitation (normal and oblique incidences) and excitation by a point current source. We are interested in the coherent reflected field and the mutual coherence function of the reflected field at the surface. Explicit results are given in certain special cases. We also compare the theory with numerical simulations.