Performance comparison of ghost imaging versus conventional imaging in photon shot noise cases

The performances of ghost imaging and conventional imaging in photon shot noise cases are investigated. We define an imaging signal-to-noise ratio called SNRtranwhere only the object’s transmission region is used to evaluate the imaging quality and it can be applied to ghost imaging(GI) with any random pattern. Both the values SNRtran GIof GI and SNRtran CIof conventional imaging in photon shot noise cases are deduced from a simple statistical analysis. The analytical results, which are backed up by numerical simulations, demonstrate that the value SNRtran GIis related to the ratio between the object’s transmission area Aoand the number density of photons illuminating the object plane Io, which is similar to the theoretical results based on the first principle of GI with a Gaussian speckle field deduced by B. I. Erkmen and J. H. Shapiro [in Adv. Opt. Photonics 2, 405–450(2010)]. In addition, we also show that the value SNRtran CIwill be larger than SNRtran GIwhen Ao is beyond a threshold value.