Southwest Quantum Information and Technology

Perfectly polarized light

Presenting Author: Aaron Goldberg, University of Toronto
Contributing Author(s): Daniel James

There have been numerous recent proposals for characterizing polarization of quantum states of light. We show that the accepted class of perfectly polarized states, with polarization determined using the readily-measurable Stokes parameters, is severely lacking in terms of both pure and mixed states. By appealing to symmetry and geometry arguments we determine all of the states corresponding to perfect polarization, and show that the accepted class of completely polarized states is only a subset of our result. We use this result to reinterpret the canonical degree of polarization, commenting on its interpretation for classical and quantum light. Our results are necessary for any further characterizations of light's polarization.

Read this article online: https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.06869, https://journals.aps.org/pra/accepted/4b075N73X691381e16288913f440c96de05193fdc

(Session 5 : Thursday from 5:00pm - 7:00 pm)