Coherence properties of light in Young's interference pattern formed with partially coherent light

摘要

It has been shown not long ago that the spectrum of light in Young's interference pattern formed by partially coherent light differs, in general, from the spectrum of light incident on the pinholes; and, moreover, that the spectrum depends on the position of the point of observation. In this paper we extend the analysis by deriving expressions for the spectral degree of coherence and for the cross-spectral density of intensity fluctuations of the light at any pair of points in the interference pattern. We illustrate the general results by examples.