Correlations among angular wave component amplitudes in elastic multiple-scattering random media.

The propagation of scalar waves through random media that provide multiple elastic scattering is considered by derivation of an expression for the angular correlation of the scattered wave amplitudes. Coherent wave transmission is shown to occur through a mechanism similar to that responsible for coherent backscattering. While the properties of the scattered wave are generally consistent with radiative-transfer theory for sufficiently small incident and scattering angles, coherent transmission provides corrections to radiative-transfer results at larger angles. The theoretical angular correlation curves are fit, by specifying the probability densities of two random variables that correspond to material parameters, to measured data of laser light scattering from various polymer microsphere suspensions.