Noise analysis in ghost telescope and ghost Fourier telescope imaging systems with shaped incoherent light

Abstract

We present an analysis of the noise properties in a ghost telescope and a ghost Fourier telescope imaging systems with shaped incoherent light. By using the analytical result of the point spread function and the numerical simulations, the effects from the shaped incoherent light on the noise and resolution are discussed. Furthermore, we also analyze the effect from the position change of the reference detector. Compared with the widely used Gaussian light source, we find that for both ghost imaging and Fourier-transform ghost diffraction, a cosine-Gaussian source can lead to degradation of the noise and the resolution. However, the noise is increased with a improving resolution when the Gaussian source is modulated by hyperbolic cosine functions. Our results show that one can obtain a good imaging resolution with a relatively small noise by choosing a suitable position of the reference detector.