Electromagnetic Scattering From a Dielectric Cylinder Buried Beneath a Slightly Rough Surface

An analytical solution is presented for the electromagnetic scattering from a dielectric circular cylinder embedded in a dielectric half-space with a slightly rough interface. The solution utilizes the spectral (plane-wave) representation of the fields and accounts for all the multiple interactions between the rough interface and the buried cylinder. First-order coefficients from the small perturbation method are used for computation of the scattered fields from the rough surface. The derivation includes both TM and TE polarizations and can be easily extended for other cylindrical buried objects (e.g., cylindrical shell, metallic cylinder). Several scattering scenarios are examined utilizing the new solution for a dielectric cylinder beneath a flat, sinusoidal, and arbitrary rough surface profile. Results indicate that the scattering pattern of a buried object below a slightly rough surface differs from the flat surface case only when the surface roughness spectrum contains a limited range of spatial frequencies. Furthermore, the illuminated area of the incident wave is seen to be a critical factor in the visibility of a buried object below a rough surface.