Reconstruction of longitudinal distributed incoherent sources

We describe measurement of the degree of coherence induced by a random light source distributed along the longitudinal z axis. If this degree of coherence is measured only between all the in-plane pairs of points placed along the radial lines it is proportional to the Fourier transform of the source’s three-dimensional intensity distribution as seen from the paraxial far zone. A reconstruction of the source shape from the measured degree of coherence is also demonstrated