Propagation features of a class of beams radiated from pseudo-Schell model vectorial sources

Abstract

Pseudo Schell-model sources were introduced and studied in the scalar domain as those partially coherent sources that present a degree of coherence depending on the difference between the radial coordinates of the two considered points. In this work we study the propagation features of a class of beams radiated from sources of this kind, but endowed with a vectorial nature. The polarization pattern and the degree of polarization are not uniform across the beam section but remain invariant upon free paraxial propagation. On the other hand, their coherence and irradiance features are also non-uniform but in this case they change at each z-plane. The field characteristics can be varied on acting on the free parameters of the cross-spectral density matrix of the source.