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Quantum‐mechanical description of polarized and unpolarized light
Author(s) -
Wünsche A.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
fortschritte der physik
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.469
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1521-3978
pISSN - 0015-8208
DOI - 10.1002/prop.200310037
Subject(s) - physics , polarization (electrochemistry) , quantum , connection (principal bundle) , type (biology) , quantum mechanics , mathematics , geometry , chemistry , ecology , biology
The restrictions for density operators of unpolarized quasiplane and quasimonochromatic two‐mode light are determined by invariance with respect to SU (2) polarization transformations and it is shown that this leads only to the type of unpolarized light established in [6]. In this connection, it is clarified and underlined by group‐theoretical considerations that the “type II of unpolarized light'' derived in [8‐11] is in reality a type of polarized light with second‐order polarization (or hidden polarization in first order) and that it is obtained by invariance with respect to an axial subgroup C ∞ v of SU (2) or of U (2).