Rotation of partially coherent beams propagating through free space

Abstract

The orientation of a general partially coherent beam is described by introducing two pairs of orthogonal axes defined in terms of the second-order coherence features of the field. A general classification scheme for light beams is presented, based on their rotational behaviour under free propagation. This behaviour could be inferred from the values of certain measurable parameters at some plane. As an example of interest, the above classification is applied to Gaussian (coherent) beams with general astigmatism.