Generalizations of Gaussian Optical Fields

Abstract

Stationary Gaussian optical fields are also often called thermal fields because they are generated by natural or thermal sources. By using the amplitude of the field, we show that thermal fields are only a particular case of the more general class of Gaussian fields. Such nonthermal Gaussian fields can be obtained experimentally, and we calculate some properties, concerning particularly the effect of Hanbury Brown and Twiss, photocounting, and coincidence experiments. We show that the thermal fields are the less chaotic or incoherent Gaussian fields. Finally, we introduce pseudo-Gaussian fields which appear in some experiments of diffusion with laser light. They are non-Gaussian fields, but their intensity has the same properties as that of a Gaussian field.