Use of the van Cittert-Zernike theorem for partially polarized sources

We introduce an extension of the van Cittert-Zernike theorem to spatially incoherent sources with partial polarization. We show through a simple example that fields generated by such sources can possess correlation matrices with interesting properties. In particular, we show that by suitable modulat...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Authors: Piquero Sanz, Gemma María, Borghi, Riccardo, Gori, Franco, Santarsiero, Massimo
Format: article
Publication Date:2000
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repository:Docta Complutense
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/58832
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/58832
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:535
Beams
Propagation
Óptica (Física)
2209.19 Óptica Física
Description
Summary:We introduce an extension of the van Cittert-Zernike theorem to spatially incoherent sources with partial polarization. We show through a simple example that fields generated by such sources can possess correlation matrices with interesting properties. In particular, we show that by suitable modulation of the polarization state across the incoherent source, the correlation between the orthogonal components of the field as well as the degree of polarization may drastically change on propagation.