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arXiv · 2607.00653

Far-field spatial coherence driven by lossy objects: first-principles approach unifying scattering of quantum light and thermal emission

Alessandro Ciattoni
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Abstract

Far-field spatial coherence dictates the interference properties of scattered light and thermal emission. Traditionally, these phenomena are treated through disjointed paradigms: classical scattering descriptions assume cold objects lacking quantum fluctuations, idealized quantum scattering schemes ignore dissipation, and semiclassical fluctuational electrodynamics relies on phenomenological noise currents, precluding the consistent treatment of incident quantum states. Here, we develop a first-principles framework based on the modified Langevin noise formalism to unify the scattering of quantum light and the intrinsic thermal emission of finite dissipative objects. We demonstrate that the outgoing far-field spatial coherence separates into an algebraic superposition of two geometry-driven mechanisms, coupled by the global unitarity of the radiation-matter dynamics. The first mechanism, elastic scattering, acts as a non-unitary spatial filter, mode-selectively attenuating and reshaping incident quantum correlations. The second mechanism, thermal emission, originates from localized material dissipation and projects the object's absorption profile into the far field, providing a quantum-vectorial derivation of the macroscopic van Cittert-Zernike theorem. Applying this framework across optical regimes, we determine operational bounds for lossy quantum photonics. Under chaotic thermal illumination, we analytically demonstrate thermal cloaking at equilibrium and show that a passive sink casts a structured thermal shadow geometrically identical to a primary emitter. Under coherent illumination, we derive a thermodynamic phase diagram bounding macroscopic phase correlations, demonstrating that subwavelength nanostructures undergo substantial coherence degradation compared to bulk objects. Finally, under spatially entangled illumination...

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Alessandro Ciattoni. 2026-07-01. Far-field spatial coherence driven by lossy objects: first-principles approach unifying scattering of quantum light and thermal emission. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.00653

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