Abstract
We present a statistical theory of forward and backward Raman amplification and spontaneous generation in dispersive media pumped by a phase-diffusion field of arbitrary bandwidth. It is shown that, unless the Stokes input is correlated with the pump, the Stokes output and the pump are statistically orthogonal, even if the Stokes field builds up spontaneously. The growth of the average Stokes field amplitude is not affected by dispersion. A general expression is given for the average Stokes intensity which is valid both above and below the critical pump intensity for overcoming the decorrelating effects of group-velocity dispersion. If the length of the medium is much greater than the coherence length associated with the dephasing of the two waves, then the average intensity of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) depends on the pump bandwidth. For relatively short medium lengths the average intensity of spontaneously initiated SRS is essentially independent of the bandwidth of a phase-diffusion pump field.