Abstract

A new general interference law is derived for the superposition of two random electromagnetic beams of any state of coherence and of any state of polarization when the beams are transmitted through polarizers and rotators. It includes, as special cases, a variety of interference laws that apply to particular situations. Some of them have a close bearing on the classic interference experiments of Fresnel and Arago that have played a basic role in elucidating the concept of polarization of light.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

Analytic proofs of the Arago–Fresnel laws for the interference of polarized light

Richard Barakat
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 10(1) 180-185 (1993)

Demonstrating Arago–Fresnel laws with Bessel beams from vectorial axicons

Keshaan Singh, Wagner Tavares Buono, Sabino Chavez-Cerda, and Andrew Forbes
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 38(9) 1248-1254 (2021)

Generation of complete coherence in Young’s interference experiment with random mutually uncorrelated electromagnetic beams

G. S. Agarwal, A. Dogariu, T. D. Visser, and E. Wolf
Opt. Lett. 30(2) 120-122 (2005)

Definition and invariance properties of the complex degree of spatial coherence

Román Castañeda, Juan Carrasquilla, and Jorge Garcia-Sucerquia
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 26(11) 2459-2465 (2009)

Spectral degree of coherence of a random three-dimensional electromagnetic field

Olga Korotkova and Emil Wolf
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 21(12) 2382-2385 (2004)