Coherent diffusion of partial spatial coherence

Partially coherent fields are abundant in many physical systems. While the propagation of partially coherent light undergoing diffraction is well understood, its evolution in the presence of coherent diffusion (i.e., diffusion of complex fields) remains largely unknown. Here we develop an analytic model describing the diffusion of partially coherent beams and study it experimentally. Our model is based on a diffusion analog of the famous Van Cittert–Zernike theorem. Experimentally, we use a four-wave mixing scheme with electromagnetically induced transparency to couple optical speckle patterns to diffusing atoms in a warm vapor. The spatial coherence properties of the speckle fields are monitored under diffusion and are compared to our model and to the familiar evolution of spatial coherence of light speckles under diffraction. We identify several important differences between the evolution dynamics of the spatial coherence under diffraction and diffusion. Our findings shed light on the propagation of partially coherent fields in media where multiple scattering or thermal motion lead to coherent diffusion.