Light is a major carrier of information about the world around us, from the microcosmos to the macrocosmos. The present methods of detection are sensitive both to robust features, such as intensity, or polarization, and to more subtle effects, such as correlations. Here we show how wave front detection, which allows for registering the direction of the incoming wave flux at a given position, can be used to reconstruct the mutual coherence function when combined with some techniques previously developed for quantum information processing.

• Received 11 January 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.010401