2009/08/31 by U. Schilling, Uwe Schilling, J. von Zanthier +3 · 1 citation
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Beam splitter #Coherent states #Fock state #Laser #Optics #Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics #Photon #Physics #Polarization (electrochemistry) #Quantum #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Waveplate #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.81.013826
published as Phys. Rev. A 81, 013826 (2001) · 6 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, published version
openalex publication_date 2010/01/26 · arxiv created 2010/02/05 · arxiv updated 2010/02/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A scheme is discussed for measuring Nth-order coherences of two orthogonally polarized light fields in a single spatial mode at very limited experimental cost. To implement the scheme, the only measurements needed are the Nth-order intensity moments after the light beam has passed through two quarter-wave plates, one half-wave plate, and a polarizing beam splitter for specific settings of the wave plates. It is shown that this method can be applied for arbitrarily large N. A set of explicit values is given for the settings of the wave plates, constituting an optimal measurement of the Nth-order coherences for any N. For Fock states the method introduced here corresponds to a full state tomography. Applications of the scheme to systems other than polarization optics are discussed.