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Canadian Journal of Physics

Application of the Functional Formalism to Investigation of the Photoelectric Counting Distribution

Andrzej Zardecki

Published Jul 1, 1971• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A general formula is derived relating the generating function of the N-fold photoelectron counting distribution to the characteristic functional of the optical field. For a stationary Gaussian radiation field the generating function is expressed as an infinite product involving eigenvalues of a set of integral equations. The results of Bédard, Dialetis, and Cantrell are shown to hold as special cases. Addition of photoelectric counts from correlated Gaussian light is analyzed and the appropriate generating function is given.

DOI
10.1139/p71-206

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Canadian Journal of Physics•May 1, 1973•3 citations
A general formula is derived relating the generating function of the N-fold photoelectron counting distribution to the characteristic functional of the optical field. For a stationary Gaussian radiation field the generating function is expressed as an infinite product involving eigenvalues of a set of integral equations. The results of Bédard, Dialetis, and Cantrell are shown to hold as special cases. Addition of photoelectric counts from correlated Gaussian light is analyzed and the appropriate generating function is given.
An exact expression is obtained for the generating function of the N-fold (i.e., N-detector) photoelectron counting distribution for cross-spectrally pure Gaussian light, in terms of the onefold generating function. It is assumed that the counting times at the different detectors are all equal, but not necessarily short compared to the coherence time of the light. In cases where the onefold generating function can be calculated, a closed formula for the N-fold generating function can be obtained.
This paper deals with the theory of the statistics of photoelectric counting experiments which involve NNN separate counting intervals. The main new results reported here are: (i) a simple formula for the NNN-fold cumulants of the intensity of Gaussian light; (ii) a detailed study of the relations between the NNN-fold cumulants of the integrated intensity and the cumulants of the NNN-fold photoelectric counts, for light of arbitrary coherence properties. These results are derived and discussed in the context of recent work by other authors.
Recently, Arecchi, Bern\'e, and Sona reported results of theoretical and experimental investigations on the twofold joint photocount distributions of a stationary Gaussian-Markovian radiation field. In this paper, we generalize their results by deriving the NNN-fold joint photocount distribution of a Gaussian (thermal) radiation field of arbitrary spectral profile, when the counting-time intervals are short compared to the coherence time of the light. The present analysis provides simple recurrence relations for the NNN-fold joint photocount distributions and for their generalized factorial moments. These relations are derived with the help of an $N\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}N$ generating matrix which is introduced here. The present analysis also indicates to what extent the NNN-fold joint photocount distributions contain useful information about the higher-order coherence properties of the radiation field.
Results have been presented by Bedard (see abstr. A33736 of 1967) on the derivation of the N-fold joint photocount distribution of a Gaussian (thermal) radiation field of arbitrary spectral profile, when the counting-time intervals are short compared with the coherence time of the light. In this paper these results are extended for arbitrary counting-time intervals. The authors assume that the fluctuating radiation field has a fixed direction of propagation and that all the photodetector surfaces lie within one coherence area on a plane normal to this direction of propagation. The evaluation of the -fold joint photocount distribution and the photocount moments can be reduced to the solution of either a homogeneous or an inhomogeneous (Fredholm) integral equation of the second kind.
We study the photocounting statistics and the integrated intensity distribution of partially polarized Gaussian light. Expressions for the characteristic functions of the two distributions are obtained in terms of the eigenvalues of an associated integral equation. Closed-form expressions for these characteristic functions are derived for the special case when the spectral profile of the light is Lorentzian. Results from a numerical evaluation of the factorial moments of the number of photoelectrons in a given time interval and of the integrated intensity distribution are also presented.
The probability distribution of photoelectrons detected simultaneously at L different points of a photocathode is studied under the assumptions that the incident light is Gaussian with arbitrary state of coherence and polarization. The generating function is expressed as an infinite product of eigenvalues of a matrix integral equation, the kernel being the correlation matrix. The case of spectrally pure light beams is discussed in detail and the relation to previous work is given. The notion of polarizationally pure beams is introduced, for which the polarization state of light is independent of the spatial and temporal coherence. The generating function is then expressed in terms of eigenvalues of a simpler integral equation. An approximate distribution valid up to the second moment is derived.