Correlation between intensity fluctuations of polychromatic beams generated by quasi-homogeneous sources and the scaling law

• We investigated the correlation between intensity fluctuations with polychromatic beams.
• It is shown that the frequency components of correlation may generally change on propagation.
• We discussed the extreme case of critical angle at which no frequency shift occurs.
• We proposed the so-called scaling law for correlation between intensity fluctuations.

The far-zone correlation between intensity fluctuations with polychromatic beams generated by quasi-homogeneous sources is investigated by giving two illustrative examples. The analyses show that, in general, the frequency components of correlation between intensity fluctuations may change on propagation. Moreover, we have discussed the extreme case of critical angle at which no frequency shift occurs, and also proposed the so-called scaling law for correlation between intensity fluctuations.