Spatiotemporal ghost imaging and interference

Ghost imaging retrieves the image of an object by using second-order correlation, and this technique studied so far has been considered in either a spatial or temporal domain, which is hard to apply to the scenario of imaging spatiotemporal dynamic objects (STDOs). Here we propose to demonstrate spatiotemporal ghost imaging and interference (STGII) for STDOs by extending the correlation theory of optical coherence into the spatiotemporal domain. We have derived the generalized analytical formula for such STGII with partially coherent pulsed beams. Through a simple example of spatiotemporal slits at different location and time, the interesting phenomena of STGII are achieved under suitable conditions and it is observed that the image quality and interference visibility are affected by both the spatial and temporal parameters of partially coherent pulsed beams.