Polarization correlations in quantum optics
Luis Lorenzo Sánchez-Soto, A. B. Klimov, Gunnar G. Bjork, Jonas Söderholm, Ulrik L. Andersen, Christoph W. Marquardt, Gerd Leuchs · International Conference on Quantum Information · 2011
The standard degree of polarization involves exclusively first-order moments of the Stokes variables. This may be sufficient for most classical problems, but for quantum fields higher-order correlations are crucial. We claim that a complete polarization characterization must involve a whole hierarchy of polarization degrees constructed order by order, as it happens in coherence theory. We present here a second-order degree and determine it experimentally.