INVARIANCE PROPERTIES OF RANDOM PULSES AND OF OTHER RANDOM-FIELDS IN DISPERSIVE MEDIA

This paper is concerned with one-dimensional random fields consisting of randomly distributed identical light pulses which propagate in a li near dispersive medium. It is shown that such fields are necessarily s tationary and that their power spectra and their longitudinal coherenc e properties do not change on propagation. The invariance of the power spectrum and of the coherence properties are shown to apply more gene rally to any one-dimensional stationary field of any state of coherenc e, propagating in a linear dispersive medium. Some invariance properti es of nondiffracting partially coherent fields in dispersive media and of partially coherent fields in lossless fibers are also discussed.