Abstract

It is well known that two statistical optics topics, physical radiometry and random screen (diffuser) optics, can be analyzed using the formalism of (monochromatic) random processes. In the first case, however, ergodic statistical ensemble averaging is physically realized through detector temporal integration in the parametric approximation¹ while, in the second case, the statistical averaging has a purely mathematical character. This important difference does not prevent us, however, from applying some definitions of basic quantities of physical radiometry to diffuser theory or vice versa. In this paper, several aspects of such comparative analyses are discussed. This study is basically related to such physical optic quantities as radiant intensity, the Wiener spectrum, and radiance. Two theoretical models, the quasi-homogeneous approximation² and the more general Schell source formalism are discussed.

© 1986 Optical Society of America