Influence of saturation on the quality of wavefront reversal in the case of stimulated scattering of spatially inhomogeneous pump radiation

A theoretical investigation is made of stimulated scattering of spatially inhomogeneous radiation under saturation conditions. A system of kinetic equations describing the interaction between the pump radiation and Stokes waves, correlated and uncorrelated with the exciting field, is derived and solved. A quantitative criterion is derived for the quality of wavefront reversal in the case of generation of Stokes radiation from the spontaneous noise and also in the case of a "Brillouin" amplifier.