Analogies between classical scalar wave fields in any state of spatial coherence and some quantum states of light

Abstract

The border between the descriptions of the classical optical fields in any state of spatial coherence and the quantum coherence state of light is revisited in the framework of the phase-space representation. Although it is established that such descriptions are not completely equivalent, the exact calculation of the marginal power spectrum leads to new analogies that suggest that some features exclusively attributed to quantum states of light can be also shared by classical optical fields due to their spatial coherence state.