N-Fold Photoelectric Counting Statistics of Gaussian Light

Abstract

This paper deals with the theory of the statistics of photoelectric counting experiments which involve $N$ separate counting intervals. The main new results reported here are: (i) a simple formula for the $N$-fold cumulants of the intensity of Gaussian light; (ii) a detailed study of the relations between the $N$-fold cumulants of the integrated intensity and the cumulants of the $N$-fold photoelectric counts, for light of arbitrary coherence properties. These results are derived and discussed in the context of recent work by other authors.