Moments of the Wigner distribution of rotationally symmetric partially coherent light.

Abstract

The Wigner distribution of rotationally symmetric partially coherent light is considered, and the constraints for its moments are derived. Although all odd-order moments vanish, these constraints lead to a drastic reduction in the number of parameters that we need to describe all even-order moments: whereas in general we have (N + 1)(N + 2)(N + 3)/6 different moments of order N, this number reduces to (1 + N/2)2 in the case of rotational symmetry. A way to measure the moments as intensity moments in the output planes of (generally anamorphic) fractional Fourier-transform systems is presented.