1997/12/16 by Márcia T. Fontenelle, Marcia T. Fontenelle, Samuel L. Braunstein +6
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Magneto-Optical Properties and Applications #Nuclear Physics and Applications #Optical Polarization and Ellipsometry #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/9712032
RevTeX + 3 postscript figures, 11 pages, submitted to Physical Review A
arxiv created 1997/12/16 · openalex publication_date 1997/12/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Recently, Torgerson and Mandel [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3939 (1996)] have reported a disagreement between two schemes for measuring the phase difference of a pair of optical fields. We analyze these schemes and derive their associated phase-difference probability distributions, including both their strong and weak field limits. Our calculation confirms the main point of Torgerson and Mandel of the non-uniqueness of an operational definition of the phase distribution. We further discuss the role of postselection of data and argue that it cannot meaningfully improve the sensitivity.