Temporal coherence length of light in semiclassical field theory models

TL;DR

This paper compares two classical models of radiation to analyze their statistical features, especially the temporal coherence length, and discusses how these features can distinguish the models and the ambiguities involved.

Contribution

It introduces a comparative analysis of classical radiation models focusing on temporal coherence, highlighting potential experimental differentiation methods and conceptual ambiguities.

Findings

Different models produce distinct temporal coherence features.

Temporal coherence length can help differentiate classical radiation models.

Ambiguities exist in defining the temporal coherence length.

Abstract

The following work is motivated by the conceptual problems associated with the wave-particle duality and the notion of the photon. Two simple classical models for radiation from individual emitters are compared, one based on sines with random phasejumps, another based on pulse trains. The sum signal is calculated for a varying number of emitters. The focus lies on the final signal's statistical features quantified by means of the temporal coherence function and the temporal coherence length. We show how these features might be used to experimentally differentiate between the models. We also point to ambiguities in the definition of the temporal coherence length.