2001/10/30 by Ayman F. Abouraddy, Alexander V. Sergienko, Bahaa E. A. Saleh +1 · 1 citation
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/s0030-4018(01)01645-5
published as Opt. Comm. 201, 93-98 (2002) · 15 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Opt. Comm
arxiv created 2001/10/30 · openalex publication_date 2002/01/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A formalism for two-photon Stokes parameters is introduced to describe the polarization entanglement of photon pairs. This leads to the definition of a degree of two-photon polarization, which describes the extent to which the two photons act as a pair and not as two independent photons. This pair-wise polarization is complementary to the degree of polarization of the individual photons. The approach provided here has a number of advantages over the density matrix formalism: it allows the one- and two-photon features of the state to be separated and offers a visualization of the mixedness of the state of polarization.