We present an experimental study showing the effect of the change in the bandwidth of light on the magnitude of both the complex degree of coherence and the spectral degree of coherence at a pair of points in the cross-section of a beam. A variable bandwidth source with a Young’s interferometer is utilized to produce the interference fringes. We also report for the first time that if the field is quasi-monochromatic or sufficiently narrowband, the elements of both the beam coherence polarization matrix and the cross-spectral density matrix, normalized to intensities (spectral densities) at the two points possess identical values.
© 2010 OSA
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