Emergence of Wave Coherence

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This simulation of the 2D wave equation demonstrates how coherence emerges a distance away from an incoherent source. The point sources in the center are randomly located with random frequency and phase. This makes the ensemble quite incoherent. However, as the waves travel away from the center, we see the emergence of regions with spatial and temporal coherence. This same process takes place with starlight. When the light from distant stars reaches earth, it has a very large area of coherence.

This animation was inspired by work done by Nils Berglund which was featured on the channel Huygens Optics in Part 2 of his coherence series.

The animation was created using an FDTD algorithm in Python. Absorbing boundaries were implemented. The figure was created with matplotlib and ffmpeg.

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