Wave propagation analysis using the variance matrix

The propagation of a coherent laser wave-field through a pseudo-random phase plate is studied using the variance matrix estimated from Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor data. The uncertainty principle is used as a tool in discriminating the data obtained from the Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. Quantities of physical interest such as the twist parameter, and the symplectic eigenvalues, are estimated from the wavefront sensor measurements. A distance measure between two variance matrices is introduced and used to estimate the spatial asymmetry of a wave-field in the experiment. The estimated quantities are then used to compare a distorted wave-field with its undistorted counterpart.