Statistical ensemble formalism of Kim, Mandel and Wolf (J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 4, 433 (1987)) offers a realistic model for characterizing the effect of stochastic non-image forming optical media on the state of polarization of transmittedlight. With suitable choice of the Jones ensemble, various Mueller transformations - some of which have been unknown so far - are deduced. It is observed that the ensemble approach is formally identical to the positive operator valued measures (POVM) on the quantum density matrix. This observation, in combination with the recent suggestion by Ahnert and Payne (Phys. Rev. A 71, 012330, (2005)) - in the context of generalized quantum measurement on single photon polarization states - that linear optics elements can be employed in setting up all possible POVMs, enables us to propose a way of realizing different types of Mueller devices.
Statistical ensemble formalism of Kim, Mandel and Wolf (J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 4, 433 (1987)) offers a realistic model for characterizing the effect of stochastic non-image forming optical media on the state of polarization of transmittedlight. With suitable choice of the Jones ensemble, various Mueller transformations - some of which have been unknown so far - are deduced. It is observed that the ensemble approach is formally identical to the positive operator valued measures (POVM) on the quantum density matrix. This observation, in combination with the recent suggestion by Ahnert and Payne (Phys. Rev. A 71, 012330, (2005)) - in the context of generalized quantum measurement on single photon polarization states - that linear optics elements can be employed in setting up all possible POVMs, enables us to propose a way of realizing different types of Mueller devices.
Statistical ensemble formalism of Kim, Mandel and Wolf (J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 4, 433 (1987)) offers a realistic model for characterizing the effect of stochastic non-image forming optical media on the state of polarization of transmittedlight. With suitable choice of the Jones ensemble, various Mueller transformations - some of which have been unknown so far - are deduced. It is observed that the ensemble approach is formally identical to the positive operator valued measures (POVM) on the quantum density matrix. This observation, in combination with the recent suggestion by Ahnert and Payne (Phys. Rev. A 71, 012330, (2005)) - in the context of generalized quantum measurement on single photon polarization states - that linear optics elements can be employed in setting up all possible POVMs, enables us to propose a way of realizing different types of Mueller devices.
The statistical ensemble formalism of Kim et al [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A4, 433 (1987)] offers a realistic model for characterizing the effect of stochastic nonimage-forming optical media on the state of polarization of transmitted light. With suitable choice of the Jones ensemble, various Mueller transformations-some of which are hitherto unknown-are deduced. It is observed that the ensemble approach is formally identical to the positive-operator-valued measures (POVMs) on the quantum density matrix. This observation, in combination with the recent suggestion by Ahnert and Payne [Phys. Rev. A71, 012330-1 (2005)]-in the context of generalized quantum measurement on single photon polarization states-that linear optics elements can be employed in setting up all possible POVMs enables us to propose a way of realizing different types of Mueller devices.
In the paper a quantum description of an effective state of polarization for an electromagnetic field containing variously polarized photons is presented. The discussion of the problem includes the quantum character of a single photon, comparison with a classical field, matrix description of photon polarization and physical interpretation of the representation of a density operator that represents photons in a statistical ensemble. Full text: PDF References: R.J. Glauber, Quantum Theory of Optical Coherence (Wiley-VCH 2007). C.C. Gerry, P.L. Knight, Introductory Quantum Optics (Cambrige Univeristy Press 2005) R.J. Glauber, New Techn. Ideas Quant. Measur. Theory 480, 336 (1986). L. Michalik, J. Jasinski, P.L. Makowski, A.W. Domanski,Problem of degree of polarization for photons, Proc. SPIE 7745, 77450K (2010). [CrossRef] T. Tudor, A. Gheondea, Pauli algebraic forms of normal and nonnormal operators, Jour. Opt. Soc. Am. A 24, 204 (2007). [CrossRef]
In the paper a quantum description of an effective state of polarization for an electromagnetic field containing variously polarized photons is presented. The discussion of the problem includes the quantum character of a single photon, comparison with a classical field, matrix description of photon polarization and physical interpretation of the Pauli representation of a density operator that represents photons in a statistical ensemble. Full text: PDF References: R.J. Glauber, Quantum Theory of Optical Coherence (Wiley-VCH 2007). C.C. Gerry, P.L. Knight, Introductory Quantum Optics (Cambrige Univeristy Press 2005) R.J. Glauber, New Techn. Ideas Quant. Measur. Theory 480, 336 (1986). L. Michalik, J. Jasinski, P.L. Makowski, A.W. Domanski,"Problem of degree of polarization for photons", Proc. SPIE 7745, 77450K (2010). [CrossRef] T. Tudor, A. Gheondea, "Pauli algebraic forms of normal and nonnormal operators", Jour. Opt. Soc. Am. A 24, 204 (2007). [CrossRef]
Positive-operator-value measures (POVM's) are the most general class of quantum measurements. We propose a setup in which all possible POVM's of a single-photon polarization state (corresponding to all possible sets of two-dimensional Kraus operators) can be implemented easily using linear optics elements. This method makes it possible to experimentally realize any projective orthogonal, projective nonorthogonal or nonprojective sets of any number of POVM operators. Furthermore, our implementation only requires vacuum ancillas and is deterministic rather than probabilistic. Thus it realizes every POVM with the correct set of output states. We give the settings required to implement two different well-known nonorthogonal projective POVM's.
A continuous positive operator-valued measurement (POVM) is described for the polarization state of a single photon propagating in a known spatiotemporal mode. This POVM is shown to be the maximum-likelihood quantum measurement for estimating that polarization state. Moreover, the maximum-likelihood polarization estimate derived from this POVM enables uniformly optimal measure-and-prepare state transmission via classical communication---at the F=2/3 classical limit on average teleportation fidelity---for any pure state of polarization. When two continuous-POVM polarimeters are used to detect the singlet state of a pair photons that are in distinct spatial modes, the conditional probability density for one polarimeter's output given the other's encompasses the quantum interference patterns seen in standard singlet-state polarization analysis. For single-photon illumination, a 1:M optical splitter followed by a collection of M projective polarization measurements, whose bases are uniformly distributed over the Poincar\'e sphere, yields observation statistics that converge in distribution to those of the continuous-POVM polarimeter as $M\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$.