Distortion of a wave beam by thermal self-interaction in a droplet medium

An analysis is made of the thermal self-interaction of an optical beam in a randomly inhomogeneous droplet medium during regular evaporation of droplets. Equations are derived for the average beam intensity in the self-interaction process. An example of transient self-interaction is used to analyze the influence of regular and random inhomogeneities and also of the coherent and geometric properties of the beam on the formation and characteristics of the bleached channel.