Statistical Optics

by Joseph W. Goodman

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Genres: Physics

572 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[عدنان العبار · Rating 5 out of 5]

When we detect the intensity of an optical field, we average the result over time. This is done because of the many frequencies propagating with the wave and because of how fast the fluctuations are. Essentially, the measurements have to be statistical averages, and many types of statistical fluctuations can be taken. Currently, there is no detector available that can measure the frequency of visible light directly, so other methods have to be taken. Moreover, not all ensembles are ergodic. All of these motivate us to study the intensity of the optical field in a statistical manner. That, and one major reason: It is not only the case that the fluctuations aren't predictable a-priori, in ensembles that are not ergodic or wide-sense stationary. The issue to be tackled is also that a statistical framework is often much better to study events that are complicated to the degree of what we see in this book.

We were assigned this book by Professor James Fienup for his course, OPT 561: Advanced Imaging. That was one of the best courses I have ever taken. It's so much fun and it covers so many ideas in physics. I always stayed 20 minutes after the course asking my professor about the ideas discussed in the lecture. (Professor James Fienup is actually Professor Joseph Goodman's Ph.D. student so many years back then.) The course draws heavily from many ideas in the book but adds more topics to it. This book is also influenced heavily by Emil Wolf's Introduction to the Theory of Coherence and Polarization.

The second and third chapters of the book are mainly concerned with the mathematics involved in statistical optics, most importantly on Gaussian and Poissonian random variables and processes. Chapters four to seven discuss first-order coherence, higher-order coherence, and partial coherence, both spatially and temporally, employing a statistical framework. There is really no book that does it like this one, not even statistical mechanics books. Chapters eight and nine apply statistical optics in slightly more difficult regions. Chapter eight discusses at length turbulence and astronomical imaging. It also talks about many related phenomena, one of which is imaging through tissue and the like. The ninth and final chapter, it covers many basic ideas of quantum optics and photon counting.

Every person interested in optics SHOULD go over this book. I have read it from cover to cover, some chapters are currently unreadable because of the filled marginalia and the underlining. This book is really a masterpiece, and no wonder there is an award named after the author of this book.