Effective spatial and angular correlations in beams of any state of spatial coherence and an associated phase-space product

Abstract

We study effective spatial and angular correlations in beams of any state of spatial coherence, and we introduce a phase-space product, $Q$, which takes these correlations into account. This phase-space product is shown to reduce to the conventional beam-quality factor $M^2$ when the beam is spatially fully coherent. We also determine the lower bound for the value of $Q$ and demonstrate that it is attained for all Gaussian Schell-model beams.

© 2001 Optical Society of America

Light beams with minimum phase–space product

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