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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

A Photonic System for Generating Unconditional Polarization-Entangled Photons Based on Multiple Quantum Interference
Published on: September 5, 2019
Assessing the polarization of a quantum field from stokes fluctuations
A B Klimov1, G Björk, J Söderholm
1Departamento de Física, Universidad de Guadalajara, 44420 Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Abstract:
We propose an operational degree of polarization in terms of the variance of the Stokes vector minimized over all the directions of the Poincaré sphere. We examine the properties of this second-order definition and carry out its experimental determination. Quantum states with the same standard (first-order) degree of polarization are correctly discriminated by this new measure. We argue that a comprehensive quantum characterization of polarization properties requires a whole hierarchy of higher-order degrees.
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