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For a photon in a fixed spatial mode, the two transverse photon polarizations span a qubit space. A pure photon polarization state is with , and a general state is a two-dimensional density matrix. Its Bloch vector gives the normalized Stokes parameters. Polarization-dependent path separation can correlate this internal degree of freedom with a path qubit.
// Target: quantum-error-correction.bigb
The knowledge that light is polarized precedes the knowledge of the existence of the photon, see polarization of light for the classical point of view.
The polarization state and how it can be decomposed into different modes can be well visualized with the Poincaré sphere.
One key idea about photon polarization is that it carries angular momentum. Therefore, when an electron changes orbitals in the Schrödinger equation solution for the hydrogen atom, the angular momentum (as well as energy) change is carried out by the polarization of the photon!
- clear animations showing how two circular polarizations can make a vertical polarization
- a polarizer can be modelled bra operator.
- light polarization experiments are extremely direct evidence of quantum superposition. Individual photons must be on both L and R states at the same time because a V filter passes half of either L or R single photons, but it passes all L + R photons