Coherence (physics)

In physics, two wave sources are perfectly coherent if their frequency and waveform
are identical and their phase difference is constant. Coherence is an ideal property of
waves that enables stationary (i.e. temporally and spatially constant) interference. It
contains several distinct concepts, which are limiting cases that never quite occur in
reality but allow an understanding of the physics of waves, and has become a very
important concept in quantum physics. More generally, coherence describes all
properties of the correlation between physical quantities of a single wave, or
between several waves or wave packets.

Interference is the addition, in the mathematical sense, of wave functions. A single

wave can interfere with itself, but this is still an addition of two waves (see Young's
slits experiment). Constructive or destructive interferences are limit cases, and two
waves always interfere, even if the result of the addition is complicated or not
remarkable. When interfering, two waves can add together to create a wave of
greater amplitude than either one (constructive interference) or subtract from each
other to create a wave of lesser amplitude than either one (destructive interference),
depending on their relative phase. Two waves are said to be coherent if they have a
constant relative phase. The amount of coherence can readily be measured by the
interference visibility, which looks at the size of the interference fringes relative to
the input waves (as the phase offset is varied); a precise mathematical definition of
the degree of coherence is given by means of correlation functions.

Spatial coherence describes the correlation (or predictable relationship) between

waves at different points in space, either lateral or longitudinal.[1] Temporal
coherence describes the correlation between waves observed at different moments in
time. Both are observed in the Michelson–Morley experiment and Young's
interference experiment. Once the fringes are obtained in the Michelson
interferometer, when one of the mirrors is moved away gradually, the time for the
beam to travel increases and the fringes become dull and finally disappear, showing
temporal coherence. Similarly, if in a double-slit experiment, the space between the
two slits is increased, the coherence dies gradually and finally the fringes disappear,
showing spatial coherence. In both cases, the fringe amplitude slowly disappears, as
the path difference increases past the coherence length.

Contents
Introduction
Mathematical definition
Coherence and correlation
Examples of wave-like states
Temporal coherence
The relationship between coherence time and bandwidth
Examples of temporal coherence
 Measurement of temporal coherence
Spatial coherence
Examples of spatial coherence
Spectral coherence
Measurement of spectral coherence
Polarization and coherence
Applications
Holography
Non-optical wave fields
Modal Analysis
Quantum coherence
See also
References
External links

Introduction
Coherence was originally conceived in connection with Thomas Young's double-slit
experiment in optics but is now used in any field that involves waves, such as
acoustics, electrical engineering, neuroscience, and quantum mechanics. Coherence
describes the statistical similarity of a field (electromagnetic field, quantum wave
packet etc.) at two points in space or time.[2] The property of coherence is the basis
for commercial applications such as holography, the Sagnac gyroscope, radio
antenna arrays, optical coherence tomography and telescope interferometers
(astronomical optical interferometers and radio telescopes).

Mathematical definition
A precise definition is given at degree of coherence.

The coherence function between two signals and is defined as[3]

where is the cross-spectral density of the signal and and are

the power spectral density functions of and , respectively. The cross-
spectral density and the power spectral density are defined as the Fourier transforms
of the cross-correlation and the autocorrelation signals, respectively. For instance, if
the signals are functions of time, the cross-correlation is a measure of the similarity
of the two signals as a function of the time lag relative to each other and the
autocorrelation is a measure of the similarity of each signal with itself in different
instants of time. In this case the coherence is a function of frequency. Analogously, if
 and are functions of space, the cross-correlation measures the similarity of
two signals in different points in space and the autocorrelations the similarity of the
signal relative to itself for a certain separation distance. In that case, coherence is a
function of wavenumber (spatial frequency).

The coherence varies in the interval . If it means that

the signals are perfectly correlated or linearly related and if they are
totally uncorrelated. If a linear system is being measured, being the input and
the output, the coherence function will be unitary all over the spectrum.
However, if non-linearities are present in the system the coherence will vary in the
limit given above.

Coherence and correlation

The coherence of two waves expresses how well correlated the waves are as
quantified by the cross-correlation function.[4][5][6][7][8] The cross-correlation
quantifies the ability to predict the phase of the second wave by knowing the phase
of the first. As an example, consider two waves perfectly correlated for all times. At
any time, phase difference will be constant. If, when combined, they exhibit perfect
constructive interference, perfect destructive interference, or something in-between
but with constant phase difference, then it follows that they are perfectly coherent.
As will be discussed below, the second wave need not be a separate entity. It could be
the first wave at a different time or position. In this case, the measure of correlation
is the autocorrelation function (sometimes called self-coherence). Degree of
correlation involves correlation functions.[9]:545-550

Examples of wave-like states

These states are unified by the fact that their behavior is described by a wave
equation or some generalization thereof.

Waves in a rope (up and down) or slinky (compression and expansion)

Surface waves in a liquid
Electromagnetic signals (fields) in transmission lines
Sound
Radio waves and Microwaves
Light waves (optics)
Electrons, atoms and any other object (such as a baseball), as described by
quantum physics

In most of these systems, one can measure the wave directly. Consequently, its
correlation with another wave can simply be calculated. However, in optics one
cannot measure the electric field directly as it oscillates much faster than any
detector's time resolution.[10] Instead, we measure the intensity of the light. Most of
the concepts involving coherence which will be introduced below were developed in
the field of optics and then used in other fields. Therefore, many of the standard
measurements of coherence are indirect measurements, even in fields where the
wave can be measured directly.
Temporal coherence
Temporal coherence is
the measure of the
average correlation
between the value of a
wave and itself delayed
by τ, at any pair of times. Figure 1: The amplitude of a single frequency wave as a function
Temporal coherence tells of time t (red) and a copy of the same wave delayed by τ (blue).
us how monochromatic a The coherence time of the wave is infinite since it is perfectly
source is. In other words, correlated with itself for all delays τ.[11]:118
it characterizes how well
a wave can interfere with
itself at a different time.
The delay over which the
phase or amplitude
wanders by a significant
amount (and hence the
correlation decreases by
significant amount) is
defined as the coherence
time τc. At a delay of τ=0 Figure 2: The amplitude of a wave whose phase drifts significantly
the degree of coherence in time τc as a function of time t (red) and a copy of the same
is perfect, whereas it wave delayed by 2τc(green). At any particular time t the wave can
drops significantly as the interfere perfectly with its delayed copy. But, since half the time
delay passes τ=τc. The the red and green waves are in phase and half the time out of
phase, when averaged over t any interference disappears at this
coherence length Lc is
delay.
defined as the distance
the wave travels in time
τc.[9]:560, 571–573

One should be careful not to confuse the coherence time with the time duration of
the signal, nor the coherence length with the coherence area (see below).

The relationship between coherence time and bandwidth

It can be shown that the larger the range of frequencies Δf a wave contains, the
faster the wave decorrelates (and hence the smaller τc is). Thus there is a
tradeoff:[9]:358-359, 560

Formally, this follows from the convolution theorem in mathematics, which relates
the Fourier transform of the power spectrum (the intensity of each frequency) to its
autocorrelation.[9]:572

Examples of temporal coherence

We consider four examples of temporal coherence.

A wave containing only a single frequency (monochromatic) is perfectly correlated

with itself at all time delays, in accordance with the above relation. (See Figure 1)
Conversely, a wave whose phase drifts quickly will have a short coherence time.
(See Figure 2)
Similarly, pulses (wave packets) of waves, which naturally have a broad range of
frequencies, also have a short coherence time since the amplitude of the wave
changes quickly. (See Figure 3)
Finally, white light, which has a very broad range of frequencies, is a wave which
varies quickly in both amplitude and phase. Since it consequently has a very short
coherence time (just 10 periods or so), it is often called incoherent.

Monochromatic sources are usually lasers; such high monochromaticity implies long
coherence lengths (up to hundreds of meters). For example, a stabilized and
monomode helium–neon laser can easily produce light with coherence lengths of 300
m.[12] Not all lasers are monochromatic, however (e.g. for a mode-locked Ti-sapphire
laser, Δλ ≈ 2  nm - 70  nm). LEDs are characterized by Δλ ≈ 50  nm, and tungsten
filament lights exhibit Δλ ≈ 600 nm, so these sources have shorter coherence times
than the most monochromatic lasers.

Holography requires light with a long coherence time. In contrast, optical coherence
tomography, in its classical version, uses light with a short coherence time.

Measurement of temporal coherence

In optics, temporal coherence is

measured in an interferometer
such as the Michelson
interferometer or Mach–
Zehnder interferometer. In
these devices, a wave is
combined with a copy of itself
that is delayed by time τ. A
Figure 3: The amplitude of a wavepacket whose amplitude
detector measures the time-
changes significantly in time τc (red) and a copy of the
averaged intensity of the light
same wave delayed by 2τc(green) plotted as a function of
exiting the interferometer. The
time t. At any particular time the red and green waves are
resulting interference visibility uncorrelated; one oscillates while the other is constant and
(e.g. see Figure 4) gives the so there will be no interference at this delay. Another way
temporal coherence at delay τ. of looking at this is the wavepackets are not overlapped in
Since for most natural light time and so at any particular time there is only one
sources, the coherence time is nonzero field so no interference can occur.
much shorter than the time
resolution of any detector, the
detector itself does the time averaging. Consider the example shown in Figure 3. At a
fixed delay, here 2τc, an infinitely fast detector would measure an intensity that
fluctuates significantly over a time t equal to τc. In this case, to find the temporal
coherence at 2τc, one would manually time-average the intensity.
 Figure 4: The time-averaged intensity (blue) detected at
the output of an interferometer plotted as a function of
delay τ for the example waves in Figures 2 and 3. As the
delay is changed by half a period, the interference
switches between constructive and destructive. The
black lines indicate the interference envelope, which
gives the degree of coherence. Although the waves in
Figures 2 and 3 have different time durations, they have
the same coherence time.

Spatial coherence
In some systems, such as water waves or optics, wave-like states can extend over one
or two dimensions. Spatial coherence describes the ability for two points in space, x1
and x2, in the extent of a wave to interfere, when averaged over time. More precisely,
the spatial coherence is the cross-correlation between two points in a wave for all
times. If a wave has only 1 value of amplitude over an infinite length, it is perfectly
spatially coherent. The range of separation between the two points over which there
is significant interference defines the diameter of the coherence area, Ac [13]
(Coherence length, often a feature of a source, is usually an industrial term related to
the coherence time of the source, not the coherence area in the medium.) Ac is the
relevant type of coherence for the Young's double-slit interferometer. It is also used
in optical imaging systems and particularly in various types of astronomy telescopes.
Sometimes people also use "spatial coherence" to refer to the visibility when a wave-
like state is combined with a spatially shifted copy of itself.

Examples of spatial coherence

Spatial coherence
Figure 5: A plane Figure 6: A wave with Figure 7: A wave with Figure 8: A wave with
wave with an infinite a varying profile a varying profile finite coherence area
coherence length. (wavefront) and (wavefront) and is incident on a
infinite coherence finite coherence pinhole (small
length. length. aperture). The wave
will diffract out of the
pinhole. Far from the
pinhole the emerging
spherical wavefronts
are approximately
flat. The coherence
area is now infinite
while the coherence
length is unchanged.

Figure 9: A wave with

infinite coherence
area is combined
with a spatially
shifted copy of itself.
Some sections in the
wave interfere
constructively and
some will interfere
destructively.
Averaging over these
sections, a detector
with length D will
measure reduced
interference
visibility. For
example, a
misaligned Mach–
Zehnder
 interferometer will
do this.

Consider a tungsten light-bulb filament. Different points in the filament emit light
independently and have no fixed phase-relationship. In detail, at any point in time the
profile of the emitted light is going to be distorted. The profile will change randomly
over the coherence time . Since for a white-light source such as a light-bulb is
small, the filament is considered a spatially incoherent source. In contrast, a radio
antenna array, has large spatial coherence because antennas at opposite ends of the
array emit with a fixed phase-relationship. Light waves produced by a laser often
have high temporal and spatial coherence (though the degree of coherence depends
strongly on the exact properties of the laser). Spatial coherence of laser beams also
manifests itself as speckle patterns and diffraction fringes seen at the edges of
shadow.

Holography requires temporally and spatially coherent light. Its inventor, Dennis
Gabor, produced successful holograms more than ten years before lasers were
invented. To produce coherent light he passed the monochromatic light from an
emission line of a mercury-vapor lamp through a pinhole spatial filter.

In February 2011 it was reported that helium atoms, cooled to near absolute zero /
Bose–Einstein condensate state, can be made to flow and behave as a coherent beam
as occurs in a laser.[14][15]

Spectral coherence
Waves of different frequencies (in
light these are different colours) can
interfere to form a pulse if they have
a fixed relative phase-relationship
(see Fourier transform). Conversely, if
waves of different frequencies are not
coherent, then, when combined, they
create a wave that is continuous in
time (e.g. white light or white noise).
The temporal duration of the pulse
is limited by the spectral bandwidth of
the light according to:

,
Figure 10: Waves of different frequencies interfere
which follows from the properties of to form a localized pulse if they are coherent.
the Fourier transform and results in
Küpfmüller's uncertainty principle
(for quantum particles it also results in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle).

If the phase depends linearly on the frequency (i.e. ) then the pulse will
have the minimum time duration for its bandwidth (a transform-limited pulse),
otherwise it is chirped (see dispersion).
Measurement of spectral
coherence

Measurement of the spectral

coherence of light requires a
nonlinear optical interferometer, such
as an intensity optical correlator,
frequency-resolved optical gating
(FROG), or spectral phase
interferometry for direct electric-field
reconstruction (SPIDER).

Figure 11: Spectrally incoherent light interferes to

form continuous light with a randomly varying
phase and amplitude

Polarization and coherence

Light also has a polarization, which is the direction in which the electric field
oscillates. Unpolarized light is composed of incoherent light waves with random
polarization angles. The electric field of the unpolarized light wanders in every
direction and changes in phase over the coherence time of the two light waves. An
absorbing polarizer rotated to any angle will always transmit half the incident
intensity when averaged over time.

If the electric field wanders by a smaller amount the light will be partially polarized
so that at some angle, the polarizer will transmit more than half the intensity. If a
wave is combined with an orthogonally polarized copy of itself delayed by less than
the coherence time, partially polarized light is created.

The polarization of a light beam is represented by a vector in the Poincaré sphere.

For polarized light the end of the vector lies on the surface of the sphere, whereas
the vector has zero length for unpolarized light. The vector for partially polarized
light lies within the sphere

Applications

Holography

Coherent superpositions of optical wave fields include holography. Holographic

objects are used frequently in daily life in bank notes and credit cards.

Non-optical wave fields

Further applications concern the coherent superposition of non-optical wave fields.
In quantum mechanics for example one considers a probability field, which is related
to the wave function (interpretation: density of the probability amplitude). Here
the applications concern, among others, the future technologies of quantum
computing and the already available technology of quantum cryptography.
Additionally the problems of the following subchapter are treated.

Modal Analysis

Coherence is used to check the quality of the transfer functions (FRFs) being
measured. Low coherence can be caused by poor signal to noise ratio, and/or
inadequate frequency resolution.

Quantum coherence
In quantum mechanics, all objects have wave-like properties (see de Broglie waves).
For instance, in Young's double-slit experiment electrons can be used in the place of
light waves. Each electron's wave-function goes through both slits, and hence has
two separate split-beams that contribute to the intensity pattern on a screen.
According to standard wave theory[16] these two contributions give rise to an
intensity pattern of bright bands due to constructive interference, interlaced with
dark bands due to destructive interference, on a downstream screen. This ability to
interfere and diffract is related to coherence (classical or quantum) of the waves
produced at both slits. The association of an electron with a wave is unique to
quantum theory.

When the incident beam is represented by a quantum pure state, the split beams
downstream of the two slits are represented as a superposition of the pure states
representing each split beam.[17] The quantum description of imperfectly coherent
paths is called a mixed state. A perfectly coherent state has a density matrix (also
called the "statistical operator") that is a projection onto the pure coherent state and
is equivalent to a wave function, while a mixed state is described by a classical
probability distribution for the pure states that make up the mixture.

Macroscopic scale quantum coherence leads to novel phenomena, the so-called

macroscopic quantum phenomena. For instance, the laser, superconductivity and
superfluidity are examples of highly coherent quantum systems whose effects are
evident at the macroscopic scale. The macroscopic quantum coherence (off-diagonal
long-range order, ODLRO)[18][19] for superfluidity, and laser light, is related to first-
order (1-body) coherence/ODLRO, while superconductivity is related to second-order
coherence/ODLRO. (For fermions, such as electrons, only even orders of
coherence/ODLRO are possible.) For bosons, a Bose–Einstein condensate is an
example of a system exhibiting macroscopic quantum coherence through a multiple
occupied single-particle state.

The classical electromagnetic field exhibits macroscopic quantum coherence. The

most obvious example is the carrier signal for radio and TV. They satisfy Glauber's
quantum description of coherence.
Recently M. B. Plenio and co-workers constructed an operational formulation of
quantum coherence as a resource theory. They introduced coherence monotones
analogous to the entanglement monotones.[20] Quantum coherence has been shown
to be equivalent to quantum entanglement[21] in the sense that coherence can be
faithfully described as entanglement, and conversely that each entanglement
measure corresponds to a coherence measure.

See also
Atomic coherence
Coherence length – distance over which a propagating wave maintains a certain
degree of coherence
Coherent states
Laser linewidth
Measurement in quantum mechanics – Interaction of a quantum system with a
classical observer
Measurement problem
Optical heterodyne detection
Quantum biology – Application of quantum mechanics and theoretical chemistry to
biological objects and problems
Quantum Zeno effect
Wave superposition

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External links
"Dr. SkySkull" (2008-09-03). "Optics basics: Coherence" (http://skullsinthestars.co
m/2008/09/03/optics-basics-coherence/). Skulls in the Stars.

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