Coherence (physics)

In physics, two wave sources are perfectly coherent if they have a constant phase difference and the same
frequency, and the same waveform. 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. Temporal
coherence tells us how Figure 1: The amplitude of a single frequency wave as a function of time t
monochromatic a source is. In (red) and a copy of the same wave delayed by τ (blue). The coherence time
other words, it characterizes how of the wave is infinite since it is perfectly correlated with itself for all delays
well a wave can interfere with τ.[11]:118
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 the degree of coherence is perfect, whereas it drops
significantly as the delay passes τ=τc. The coherence length Lc is 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 Figure 2: The amplitude of a wave whose phase drifts significantly in time τc
as a function of time t (red) and a copy of the same wave delayed by
tradeoff:[9]:358-359, 560
2τc(green). At any particular time t the wave can interfere perfectly with its
delayed copy. But, since half the time the red and green waves are in phase
.
and half the time out of phase, when averaged over t any interference
disappears at this delay.
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 detector measures the time-averaged intensity of the light exiting the interferometer. The resulting
interference visibility (e.g. see Figure 4) gives the temporal coherence at delay τ. Since for most natural light
sources, the coherence time is 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 Figure 3: The amplitude of a wavepacket whose amplitude changes
would manually time-average the significantly in time τc (red) and a copy of the same wave delayed by
intensity. 2τc(green) plotted as a function of time t. At any particular time the
red and green waves are uncorrelated; one oscillates while the other
is constant and so there will be no interference at this delay. Another
way of looking at this is the wavepackets are not overlapped in time
and so at any particular time there is only one nonzero field so no
interference can occur.

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 wave Figure 6: A wave with a Figure 7: A wave with a Figure 8: A wave with
with an infinite varying profile varying profile finite coherence area is
coherence length. (wavefront) and infinite (wavefront) and finite incident on a pinhole
coherence length. coherence length. (small 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:

which follows from the properties of the Fourier

transform and results in Küpfmüller's
Figure 10: Waves of different frequencies interfere to form a
uncertainty principle (for quantum particles it
localized pulse if they are coherent.
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.com/2008/09/0
3/optics-basics-coherence/). Skulls in the Stars.

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