Space–bandwidth product of optical signals and systems

The space–bandwidth product (SW) is fundamental for judging the performance of an optical system. Often the SW of a system is defined only as a pure number that counts the degrees of freedom of the system. We claim that a quasi-geometrical representation of the SW in the Wigner domain is more useful. We also represent the input signal as a SW in the Wigner domain. For perfect signal processing it is necessary that the system SW fully embrace the signal SW.