title: Partially coherent nonparaxial beams.
abstract: The concept of a partially coherent nonparaxial beam is proposed. A closed-form expression for the propagation of nonparaxial Gaussian Schell model (GSM) beams in free space is derived and applied to study the propagation properties of nonparaxial GSM beams. It is shown that for partially coherent nonparaxial beams a new parameter f(sigma) has to be introduced, which together with the parameter f, determines the beam nonparaxiality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Luoyang Normal College, Luoyang 471022, China. kl.duan@163.com
authors.forename: Kailiang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.forename: Baida
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lü