Coherence of neutron fields
E. Ledinegg, E. Schachinger · Physical Review A · 1983
Glauber's definition of quantum coherence is used for neutron fields under the assumption that the complete occupation number space is a direct product of Fermi subspaces. As a result, completely coherent microfields are obtained which define a density operator in full analogy to Glauber's $P$ representation of boson fields. For better physical significance, a transformation from the $P$ representation to a momentum representation is performed. It is proved that the second-order coherence function in this representation is equivalent to Wolf's second-order coherence function of a classical Dirac field. Finally, the results of the theory are used to calculate explicitly the second-order coherence function and the coherence time of an ideally collimated neutron beam.