Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect and thermal light ghost imaging

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that Hanbury Brown-Twiss and thermal light ghost imaging share the same fundamental physics, based on intensity fluctuations, but differ in information processing and experimental setup.

Contribution

It reveals the underlying equivalence of HBT and ghost imaging physics and clarifies their differences in information handling and experimental configurations.

Findings

HBT and ghost imaging share the same physics due to thermal light intensity fluctuations.

HBT requires only one bit of information, while ghost imaging involves many bits.

Different field choices (far vs. near) optimize detection and image quality.

Abstract

We show that the essential physics of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) and the thermal light ghost imaging experiments is the same, i.e., due to the intensity fluctuations of the thermal light. However, in the ghost imaging experiments, a large number of bits information needs to be treated together, whereas in the HBT there is only one bit information required to be obtained. In the HBT experiment far field is used for the purpose of easy detection, while in the ghost image experiment near (or not-far) field is used for good quality image.