Enhancement of mesoscopic fluctuations in transmission of light through a disordered medium at grazing angles

We study how intensity fluctuations in transmission through a disordered slab change depending on the regime of wave transport. A system with large (compared to the wavelength of light) inhomogeneities is considered. Within a diagrammatic approach, the variance of the total transmission coefficient is calculated numerically beyond the diffusion approximation. A great enhancement of fluctuations is found in the crossover from the ballistic to the diffusive transport at the grazing angles of incidence on the sample surface. The effect originates from the reflection of waves that propagate nearly parallel to the sample boundaries and experience scattering through small angles, and reveals itself both in transmission and reflection and in correlations between the transmitted and reflected fluxes.