Partially coherent non-paraxial vectorial Hermite-Gaussian beams and their far-field properities

The far-field theory of partially coherent vectorial non-paraxial beams is expanded and their analytical propagation expressions of the Wigner distribution function matrices and the cross-spectral-density matrices in free space are derived using the far-field approximation. Some interesting cases, in particular the vectorial non-paraxial partially coherent Hermite-Gaussian (HG) beams, are discussed and treated as special cases of our general expressions. It is shown that the f(sigma) and f parameters play an important role in determining vector and non-paraxiality of partially coherent HG beams. When two parameters are small enough, scalar and paraxial vectorial approximation is allowed; otherwise, non-paraxial vectorial approximation is applied. But the decided parameters additionally affect their far-field divergence angles. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.