Spectrally partially coherent pulse trains in dispersive media

A general theory is presented for the propagation and spreading of spectrally partially coherent plane-wave pulse trains in dispersive media. The theory is applied to chirped pulse trains with Gaussian distributions of the spectrum and the degree of spectral coherence, propagating in linearly dispersive media. Analytic expressions are derived for both the cross-spectral density function and the mutual coherence function associated with such pulse trains. Some general physical interpretations concerning the optical coherence properties of pulse trains are given.