Influence of Atmospheric Turbulence on States of Vortex Beams Carrying Orbital Angular Momentum

Based on the free-space optical communication, we research the propagation characteristics of the multiplexed vortex beams and the optical power contained in each OAM mode. We obtain the function which can provide a quantitative prediction for how the optical power of each OAM mode varies in atmospheric turbulence. We find that the optical power of OAM modes with initial topological charges will disperse to other OAM modes. And in strong atmospheric turbulence, all of the information content of the transmitted field is lost.