Radiative transfer theory for vacuum fluctuations
E. G. Mishchenko, C. W. J. Beenakker
TL;DR
This paper develops a semiclassical kinetic theory for photon flux fluctuations in disordered media, incorporating vacuum fluctuations as a novel noise source, and analyzes their impact on photon noise characteristics.
Contribution
It introduces a kinetic theory framework that includes vacuum fluctuations as a new source of photon flux noise in thermal equilibrium.
Findings
Vacuum fluctuations cause additional photon flux noise beyond scattering effects.
The theory explains super-Poissonian noise due to photon bunching.
Excess noise arises from beating of incident radiation with vacuum fluctuations.
Abstract
A semiclassical kinetic theory is presented for the fluctuating photon flux emitted by a disordered medium in thermal equilibrium. The kinetic equation is the optical analog of the Boltzmann-Langevin equation for electrons. Vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field provide a new source of fluctuations in the photon flux, over and above the fluctuations due to scattering. The kinetic theory in the diffusion approximation is applied to the super-Poissonian noise due to photon bunching and to the excess noise due to beating of incident radiation with the vacuum fluctuations.
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