The coherent artifact in modern pulse measurements

We simulate multi-shot intensity-and-phase measurements of unstable ultrashort-pulse trains using frequency-resolved-optical-gating (FROG) and spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER). Both techniques fail to reveal the pulse structure. FROG yields the average pulse duration and suggests the instability by exhibiting disagreement between measured and retrieved traces. SPIDER under-estimates the average pulse duration but retrieves the correct average pulse spectral phase. An analytical calculation confirms this behavior.