Extremal quantum states and their Majorana constellations
The characterization of quantum polarization of light requires knowledge of all the moments of the Stokes variables, which are appropriately encoded in the multipole expansion of the density matrix. We look into the cumulative distribution of those multipoles and work out the corresponding extremal...
| Autores: | , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2015 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) |
| Repositorio: | Docta Complutense |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/24189 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/24189 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | 535 Unpolarized radiation Óptica (Física) 2209.19 Óptica Física |
| Sumario: | The characterization of quantum polarization of light requires knowledge of all the moments of the Stokes variables, which are appropriately encoded in the multipole expansion of the density matrix. We look into the cumulative distribution of those multipoles and work out the corresponding extremal pure states. We find that SU(2) coherent states are maximal to any order whereas the converse case of minimal states (which can be seen as the most quantum ones) is investigated for a diverse range of the number of photons. Taking advantage of the Majorana representation, we recast the problem as that of distributing a number of points uniformly over the surface of the Poincare sphere. |
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