Photonic excess noise and wave localization - art. no. 051801

This is a theory for the effect of localization on the super-Poissonian noi se of radiation propagating through an absorbing disordered waveguide. Loca lization suppresses both the mean photon current (I) over bar and the noise power P, but the Fano factor P/(I) over bar is found to remain unaffected. For strong absorption the Fano factor has the universal value 1 + 3/2 f (w ith f the Bose-Einstein function), regardless of whether the waveguide is l ong or short compared to the localization length.