Related papers: Malus' Law for a Real Polarizer
Light Polarization has many technological applications and its discovery was crucial to reveal the transverse nature of the electromagnetic waves. However, despite its fundamental and practical importance, in high school this property of…
I discuss the physics of polarization in models with early reionization. For sufficiently high optical depth to recombination the polarization is boosted on large scales while it is suppressed on smaller scales. New peaks appear in the…
We developed a specific numerical fitting procedure, based on the least squares method, to calculate the parameters of the polarization ellipse by only using a single polarizer and a detection device for measuring the outgoing intensities.
Polarimetric radio observations of the Sun can provide rich information about emission mechanisms and the propagation medium. For the past five decades, solar polarimetric studies at low radio frequencies have almost always assumed the…
With the forthcoming release of high precision polarization measurements, such as from the Planck satellite, the metrology of polarization needs to improve. In particular, it is crucial to take into account full knowledge of the noise…
We present a method to characterize the polarization state of a light field in the continuous-variable regime. Instead of using the abstract formalism of SU(2) quasidistributions, we model polarization in the classical spirit by superposing…
A new type of atomic interferometer is proposed, in which the traditional method of measuring the state of an atom is replaced by the technique of polarization spectroscopy using the working substance of a clot of condensate of two-level…
The polarization state of the optical electromagnetic field lying several nanometers above complex dielectric structures reveals the intricate light-matter interaction that occurs in this near-field zone. This information can only be…
We experimentally demonstrate protective measurements by weakly coupling the polarization of a single-photon-level field to a measurement pointer that corresponds to the arrival time of the photon. By using an optical loop, we implement a…
Polarimetry is widely considered a powerful observational technique in X-ray astronomy, useful to enhance our understanding of the emission mechanisms, geometry and magnetic field arrangement of many compact objects. However, the lack of…
Using a single-scattering theory, we derive the expression of the degree of polarization of the light scattered from a layer exhibiting both surface and volume scattering. The expression puts forward the intimate connection between the…
The creation and detection of atomic polarization is examined theoretically, through the study of basic optical-pumping mechanisms and absorption and fluorescence measurements, and the dependence of these processes on the size of ground-…
The Mueller-Stokes formalism which governs conventional polarization optics is formulated for plane waves, and thus the only qualification one could demand of a $4\times 4$ real matrix $M$ in order that it qualifies to be the Mueller matrix…
A precise, accurate, and relatively straightforward in-situ method to measure and control the ellipticity of light resonantly interacting with an atomic vapor is described. The technique can be used to minimize vector light shifts. The…
It has been recently proposed (Boggs, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 503 (2003) 562), to use polarization of Compton scattered gamma-rays to improve the imaging performance of Compton telescopes. Building upon that work, we detected the…
We study polarization squeezing of a light beam initially in the coherent state using the nonlinear interaction hamiltonian $ H=k\big(\hat a_{x}^{\dagger2}+{\hat a_{x}}^2\big)$. For the degree of polarization squeezing, we use a definition…
We present a theory for the estimation of a scalar or a vector magnetic field by its influence on an ensemble of trapped spin polarized atoms. The atoms interact off-resonantly with a continuous laser field, and the measurement of the…
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…
We propose a novel approach to measure spin polarization of nucleons produced in electron--positron collisions. Using existing tracking devices and supporting structure material, general-purpose spectrometers can be utilized as a…
We review the state of the art for measuring the X-ray polarization of neutron stars. We discuss how valuable precision measurements of the degree and position angle of polarization as a function of energy and, where relevant, of pulse…