Nth-order coherence of thermal light

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PhysRevA.79.023819.pdf (439.3 KB)

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https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.79.023819

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https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.79.023819
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/39992

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UMBC Physics Department
UMBC Faculty Collection
UMBC Student Collection

Author/Creator

Author/Creator ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9697-4613

Date

2009-02-18

Type of Work

journal articles
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Program

Citation of Original Publication

Liu, Jianbin, and Yanhua Shih. “Nth-Order Coherence of Thermal Light.” Physical Review A 79, no. 2 (2009): 023819. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.79.023819.

Rights

©2009 American Physical Society.

Subjects

Abstract

This paper presents a unified theory for the 𝑁⁢th-order (𝑁⩾1) coherence of thermal light. We wish to show that the 𝑁⁢th-order coherence or correlation of thermal light is the result of 𝑁⁢-photon interference, which involves the superposition of 𝑁⁢-photon probability amplitudes, corresponding to different yet indistinguishable ways of triggering a 𝑁⁢-photon joint detection event. The near-field third-order spatial coherence of thermal light is calculated and its use suggested for verifying the 𝑁⁢-photon interference theory.