Statistics of photocounts of laser radiation transmitted by a turbulent atmosphere

A determination was made of the distribution of the probabilities of photocounts of laser radiation transmitted by the atmosphere in a mountainous region over a path 1 km long when the structure constant of the atmosphere was $C^2_n\lesssim 10^{-14}$ м$^{-2/3}$. An increase in the turbulence shifted the most probable distribution $P(n)$ toward lower photocount numbers $n$ and made the distribution itself approach more closely the exponential law.