Nonlocal Imaging by Conditional Averaging of Random Reference Measurements

We report the nonlocal imaging of an object by conditional averaging of the random exposure frames of a reference detector, which only sees the freely propagating field from a thermal light source. A bucket detector, synchronized with the reference detector, records the intensity fluctuations of an identical beam passing through the object mask. These fluctuations are sorted according to their values relative to the mean, then the reference data in the corresponding time-bins for a given fluctuation range are averaged, to produce either positive or negative images. Since no correlation calculations are involved, this correspondence imaging technique challenges our former interpretations of "ghost" imaging. Compared with conventional correlation imaging or compressed sensing schemes, both the number of exposures and computation time are greatly reduced, while the visibility is much improved. A simple statistical model is presented to explain the phenomenon.