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Frontiers in Optics

Theory of Optical Coherence in the Space-time and in the Space-frequency Domains

Mayukh Lahiri, E. Wolf

Published Jan 1, 2010• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The relationship between the theories of optical coherence in space-time and space-frequency domains is discussed. We show that the concept of cross-spectral purity, introduced many years ago, plays an important role in clarifying this relationship.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2010.ftue1

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The concept of cross-spectral purity of light, established by Mandel for stationary optical fields, is extended to nonstationary fields. Separability conditions that ensure the cross-spectral purity of nonstationary light are derived in the space-frequency and space-time domains. It is also shown that the property of cross-spectral purity is not strictly preserved on propagation of fields with any appreciable spectral bandwidth. Further, we introduce a method for generating cross-spectrally pure (stationary and nonstationary) fields from spatially incoherent light sources by means of achromatic Fourier-transform systems.