Does spacial coherence mean that if I took a cross section of the laser beam beam, then I can find a relation between the phase of the electric field between any two points across the cross section even after the elapse of a very long time? Whereas the highly temporal coherence means that I can predict the phase of the electric field at any point across the cross section even after let's say a big amount of time?
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3$\begingroup$ It really means that you can take widely separated parts of a wavefront (same time) of the laser beam and do interference with them (spatial coherence), and widely time-separated, i.e. many wavefronts different of small spatial difference and do interference with them (temporal coherence). Note that these concepts involve using mirrors or slits or something like that to converge the waves to cause the interference to happen. If there is a lack of coherence, then it will mix closer to white noise/light and fail to interfere. $\endgroup$– naturallyInconsistentCommented May 9, 2023 at 4:49
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