Mean and variance of energy reflected from a diffuse object illuminated by radiation with partial temporal coherence

Closed-form integral expressions are developed for the mean and variance of power and energy received from a diffusely reflective object upon illumination by laser radiation with partial temporal coherence. Expressions are presented in dimensionless form and analytic approximations to the integrals are given for signal variations at a receiver caused by fully developed laser speckle. Results are presented in terms of three parameters: the mutual Fresnel number of the receiver and object, the number of longitudinal modes of the illuminating source, and the dimensionless mode spacing of the illuminating source. The calculations assume high light levels and free-space geometry.