  We investigate the connection between thermal light and coherent pulses,
constructing mixtures of single pulses that yield the same first-order,
equal-space-point correlation function as thermal light. We present mixtures
involving (i) pulses with a Gaussian lineshape and narrow bandwidths, and (ii)
pulses with a coherence time that matches that of thermal light. We
characterize the properties of the mixtures and pulses. Our results introduce
an alternative description of thermal light in terms of multi-frequency
coherent states, valid for the description of broadband linear light-matter
interactions. We anticipate our results will be relevant to time-resolved
measurements that aim to probe the dynamics of systems as if they were excited
by natural thermal light.
