2009/05/05 by Michael Patra, Patra, Michael
Engineering · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Optical Sensing Technologies #FOS: Physical sciences #Ocular and Laser Science Research #Optics (physics.optics) #Photoacoustic and Ultrasonic Imaging #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0905.0657
arxiv created 2009/05/05 · openalex publication_date 2009/05/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We derive on the level of quantum optics expressions for the uncertainty of the photocount in a multi-mode multi-frequency setup. The result depends on the quantum correlations of the individual modes and the frequency spectrum of the radiation, the latter leading to a frequency beating sometimes referred to as dynamic laser speckle. When the mode structure of the radiation field is disturbed between source and detector, another contribution to the photocount uncertainty referred to as static speckle appears. To predict the size of this effect, we present a suitable definition of the etendue (or phase space volume) that links the number of modes of a radiation field to macroscopic quantities.