Momentum flow in electromagnetic wave systems has become a topic of considerable importance in recent years with the development of optical tweezers and spanners. Although momentum conservation has been explored for deterministic wave fields, the corresponding laws for partially coherent wave fields have yet to be completely determined. In this paper we derive the frequency-domain representation for the Maxwell stress tensor for partially coherent fields and sources.

• Received 10 October 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.79.033844