 Oblique coherent reflection from a stationary rigid rough surface

For a zero-mean stationary rough height, the mean first-order correction vanishes. At second order, the boundary derivative is $-h{\partial }_z^2{\psi }_1+h^{\prime }{\partial }_x{\psi }_1$. Averaging this expression using the power spectrum of surface height gives the displayed coherent reflection coefficient. Thus the root mean square height alone does not fix the coherent mean: the height correlation spectrum matters. For roughness varying slowly enough that $q\simeq \alpha$ in the integral, $r_N\simeq 1-2{\beta }^2{\sigma }^2$. A local random-height phase average needs this additional approximation and is not a general consequence of stationarity.