2011/11/23 by Gunnar Björk, G. Björk, Björk, G. +21
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1111.5512
11 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables, In version 2, Figs. 2 and 4 are replaced, Sec. IV extended, Sec. VIII revised, a few references added
openalex publication_date 2011/11/23 · arxiv created 2012/01/19 · arxiv updated 2012/01/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a moment expansion method for the systematic characterization of the polarization properties of quantum states of light. Specifically, we link the method to the measurements of the Stokes operator in different directions on the Poincaré sphere, and provide a method of polarization tomography without resorting to full state tomography. We apply these ideas to the experimental first- and second-order polarization characterization of some two-photon quantum states. In addition, we show that there are classes of states whose polarization characteristics are dominated not by their first-order moments (i.e., the Stokes vector) but by higher-order polarization moments.