Statistical properties of X-ray phase-contrast tomography

Quantitative in-line X-ray phase-contrast tomography methods seek to reconstruct separate images that depict an object's absorption and real-valued refractive index distributions. They hold great promise for biomedical applications due to their ability to distinguish soft tissue structures based on their complex X-ray refractive index values. In this work, we investigate the second-order statistical properties of images in phase-contrast tomography and describe how they are distinct from those associated with conventional absorption-based tomography.