Weak ghost scattering with stochastic electromagnetic beams

Abstract

We generalize the theory of ghost scattering with scalar incoherent light sources to the case of stochastic electromagnetic beams under the first-order Born approximation. We derive the expressions for the correlation of intensity fluctuations of the far-zone scattered fields and use them to study the properties of the scatterers. When the incident beam belongs to the class of electromagnetic Gaussian Schell-model beams, we discuss the dependence of ghost scattering results on the parameters such as the coherence lengths, source widths, polarization amplitudes, and degree of coherence. We find under the condition of linear polarized incident beams the scalar ghost scattering results can be retrieved, while the deviation from linear polarization may significantly distort the electromagnetic ghost scattering results.