Classical theories of coherence for statistically stationary, as well as, nonstationary optical fields are frequently discussed both in the space-time and in the space-frequency domains. However, the quantum treatment of coherence theory is generally carried out in the space-time domain. In this paper, we present a quantum-mechanical theory of first-order coherence for statistically nonstationary light in the space-frequency domain.

• Received 12 August 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.82.043837