Evolution of an Airy beam in turbulence.

The evolution of Airy beam intensity distribution in turbulence is examined. Results show that the centroid position and skewness of an Airy beam are independent on turbulence. When the exponential truncation factor is small, an Airy beam has a long tail on the left side. When the exponential truncation factor is larger than 1, an Airy beam can be approximately expressed by an off-axis Gaussian beam. If the effect of turbulence is large enough, the Airy beam converges to a Gaussian distribution. However, the convergence is slower for a small exponential truncation factor than for a large one. That is, an Airy beam with a smaller exponential truncation factor exhibits more resilience against perturbations of turbulence than does a larger one.