Abstract
The propagation of gaussian beams through parabolic index optical waveguides having random irregularities in the dielectric constant gradient has been studied. For fundamental mode propagation, the perturbation approach has been employed and an analytic expression for the loss of power from the fundamental mode has been obtained. For an incident gaussian beam with arbitrary width, geometrical optics approximation has been used and an exact analytical expression for the average value of the beamwidth has been derived for a particular random process, namely, the dichotomic Markov process. The fluctuations in the beamwidth have also been calculated.