On the concept of random orientation in far-field electromagnetic scattering by nonspherical particles

Although the model of randomly oriented nonspherical particles has been used in a great variety of applications of far-field electromagnetic scattering, it has never been defined in strict mathematical terms. In this Letter, we use the formalism of Euler rigid-body rotations to clarify the concept of statistically random particle orientations and derive its immediate corollaries in the form of the most general mathematical properties of the orientation-averaged extinction and scattering matrices. Our results serve to provide a rigorous mathematical foundation for numerous publications in which the notion of randomly oriented particles and its light-scattering implications have been considered intuitively obvious. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America