Reconstructing a quantum state of light by means of the degree of linear polarization

Lukasz Michalik; Andrzej W. Domanski

doi:10.1117/12.2007132

18 December 2012 Reconstructing a quantum state of light by means of the degree of linear polarization

Lukasz Michalik, Andrzej W. Domanski

Proceedings Volume 8697, 18th Czech-Polish-Slovak Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics; 869724 (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2007132
Event: 18th Czech-Polish-Slovak Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics, 2012, Ostravice, Czech Republic

Abstract

In this paper authors present a novel idea for reconstructing quantum states of polarized optical field expressed in the one-photon basis. The quantum state reconstruction is a measurement of a quasidistribution function P that allows to obtain a density operator for the analyzed state. The most commonly used approach for a quantum state reconstruction is based on the so called quantum tomography. The marginal probability distributions for the Wigner function are measured for different angles of projection and then they are put together into the two-dimensional distribution by the inverse Radon transformation. In our approach the analyzed field is combined with the reference field which is well defined, it can be for example a photon-beam containing linearly polarized photons only. The proposed thought experiment assumes that we measure the degree of linear polarization of this combined beam using a rotating polarizer. We obtain the searched distribution P by changing the parameters of the reference beam – its intensity and state of polarization. This series of measurements allows to build the system of equations The values of the function P at various points P(θ i, ϕ j) are the searched variables of this system. Accuracy of that solution depends on how many measurements are done.

Citation Download Citation

Lukasz Michalik and Andrzej W. Domanski "Reconstructing a quantum state of light by means of the degree of linear polarization", Proc. SPIE 8697, 18th Czech-Polish-Slovak Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics, 869724 (18 December 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2007132

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