Addressing the constraints of turbulence-free ghost imaging using photon number fluctuation correlations in the time domain

Abstract

Turbulence-free ghost imaging is a promising solution for the degraded image caused by atmospheric turbulence. However, turbulence-free ghost imaging requires two harsh conditions. To solve this problem, the temporal statistical property of the photon number fluctuations introduced by space-time fluctuating atmospheric turbulence is investigated. We find that the photons collected by the detectors is a superposition of the fluctuating photons introduced by space-time fluctuating atmospheric turbulence and the nonfluctuating photons with probabilities inversely proportional to the beam diameter. The fluctuating photons, which cause image degradation, lead to the absence of stable temporal photon number correlations, while the nonfluctuating photons have the opposite effect. Thus, fluctuating photons are eliminated by measuring the temporal correlations of the signal light and reference light separately. The results show that turbulence-free ghost images can be reconstructed even if the typical conditions are not met. This work does not negate the results of Meyers et al. and provides a method to address the harsh constraints of turbulence-free ghost imaging.