Polarization Definition and 613 Threads

Homework Statement The problem is from an optics text, however I believe the problem to be a mathematical one. I'm trying to take the Fourier transform of P(t) = ε0∫ X(t-τ)E(τ) dτ which should equal P(ω) = ε0X(ω)E(ω) where ε0 is a constant X is the susceptibility E is the...

To properly test a filter, I understand we can use a source of vertically polarized light. We send photon by photon say 1000 though a filter at, for example, 45 degrees the count the ones on the other side. We should get roughly 500, depending of the quality of the setup. I was interested in a...

Hello, I have been reflecting over this for the past few days. We can charge two insulators by rubbing them against each other. The two materials end up having an equal amount of opposite charge. For example, a glass rod rubbed with silk will become positively charged and the silk negatively...

I was reading this text where they state: "Many cosmic masers are observed to have both circular and linear polarization although the reasons for linear polarization are not well understood." Just curious, aren't there any molecules such as OH, CH4, or water masers that have transitions that...

Hi all! I've checked Wikipedia and a related thread regarding experimentally measuring an upper limit for the photon rest mass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon#Experimental_checks_on_photon_mass https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/photon-rest-mass-0-wasnt-proven-experimentally.792583/ I...

Homework Statement A grounded Z-axis symmetric closed conductor has a single point charge at the origin within it, inducing negative charge onto its inner surface. Given the induced charge density from the unit point charge, find the surface charge induced instead by a unit dipole at the...

Hi. I have a rather silly question. When speaking about a single photon? What do people mean when they speak of the polarization of a single photon. For instance, in classic electromagnetic theory, this would be the direction in which the electric field of the wave is oscillating . But does...

In the 1953 science fiction novel Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, characters use two crossed fields in outer space to block some of the solar radiation traveling towards earth: “Somehow, out in space, the light of the Sun had been polarized by two crossed fields so that no radiation could...

I was going through a derivation (equation 4.1.8 in Multi-atomic Coherent Emission by Benedict et al.) and a term called the polarization energy is defined as: $$ \int |\hat{P}(x)|^2 d^3x $$ I have been unable to find much information about this term. In their derivation of the Hamiltonian of...

How do we know for sure that the photon's orientation isn't determined until we we measure it ?

Homework Statement The electric dipole moment for the water molecule equals $$ p = 6.13 × 10−30 C · m $$ Suppose that in the glass of water all molecular dipoles could be made to point down. Calculate the resulting surface charge density at the upper water surfaceHomework Equations [/B] ## P...

Hi all, I have a problem, and in need of some help. I am an optical engineer, currently designing an attentuator for near infrared lasers (10.6μm). The attenuator consists of two enhanced ZnSe Brewster windows that rotate in opposite directions and different angles to exactly re-align...

I have a vector that represents the electric field at a specific point. How to find the vertical and horizontal polarization components of this vector?

I'm unsure about the sign of the circular polarization. Assume the magnetic field is pointed toward the observer. In the Zeeman effect spectrum, is the CCW polarized emission at higher or lower wavelength than the CW polarized emission. I think the CCW polarized emission is higher, and this is...

In a linear isotropic homogeneous dielectric, P= χε0*E, where E is the net electric field from the effects of both free and bound charges. But E=(σfree—P)/ε0 So E itself depends on P. My concern is, isn't this circular? How can the polarization density depend on a field that itself depends...

Imagine that you are sending photons that are polarized at ##45^\circ##, towards a detector that you are facing (e.g. the detectors's input face is parallel to your device/computer screen right now). The detector's polarization axis is also oriented at ##45^\circ##, so all the photons are...

I wanted to learn more about the makeup of polarization filter I read somewhere that they are organic molecules that are lined up in very thin rows very close to each other. Is this true and would you be able to recommend some resources to learn more about polarization filters?

Now,we get the circular polarization photon using 1/4 waveplate, can we make a circular polarization laser directly through Stimulated Emission Radiation? or, when a electron transition from one level to another level,what kind of polarization of the photon, linear or circular? thank you!

Homework Statement Given a sphere with radius R, centered at (0,0,0), it's dipole density given as ##P\left(\vec{r}\right)=\alpha\left(R-r\right)\hat{z}## where r is the distance from the center of the ball. I'm required to find: Bound charge density inside the sphere, bound charge density on...

Homework Statement Griffiths 4.15: A thick spherical shell of inner radius a and outer radius b is made up of dielectric material with a frozen in polarization. P = k / r in the r-hat direction. There is no free charge (why?). Find the electric field inside and out. Homework EquationsThe...

Homework Statement The optical power of a HeNe -laser is ##P_0 = 5.0mW## and the wavelength ##\lambda = 633nm##. The emitted light is linearly polarized. As the laser beam travels through two in-series -polarizers, the power detected behind the second polarizer ##P_2 = 1mW## . If the first...

Does measuring a polarized photon after it passed a polarization filter put the measurement apparatus in a superposition of detected/not-deteced (the photon)? Does this depend on whether the photon is part of an entangled pair?

I learned that light can be linearly and circularly polarized. It can also be a mix of several simultaneously. Is there also a polarization state that is neither linear nor circular? (ie not polarized?) If so, what is it?

Imagine you have a single beam of polarization-entangled photon pairs where photons of each pair have opposite polarization. This beam goes to a polarizing beam splitter. Of each pair, the vertical photon passes directly through and the horizontal photon is reflected 90 degrees left. After...

Does any kind of polarized light transfer heat or any other form of energy? If possible give me some theory and related equation.

Two photons are moving in opposite directions along the y-axis are in the entangled polarization state |Ψ> = (1/√2)(|VV>+|HH>) V is vertical polarization relative to the z axis and measured from an axis n1 and is defined as θ=θ1 and H is horizontal polarization to the z axis measured from an...

Quantum particles are not localized before they are observed, as shown with the Young double slit experiments and those with entangled particles. On the other side, vacuum is filled with virtual particles. Are the non-localized particles responsible for the virtual particles? or only for a part...

My Quantum Field Theory notes, after explaining the Lorentz condition, say this: I have some questions about this. 1) What exactly does the polarization of a photon mean? 2) Why do the degrees of freedom of the potentials determine the polarizations of the photon? 3) If instead of the Lorentz...

Homework Statement The horizontal component of a wave is in the y-direction, and the vertical component is in the x-direction. If the horizontal and vertical components of a wave on a string have the same amplitude and are 90 degrees out of phase (say δv=0 and δh= 90°). At a fixed point z...

Hi, I have a plane-wave incident upon a planar interface that is perpendicularly polarized with an electric field directed out of the page in the y-hat direction, perpendicular to the x-z plane of incidence. An image of the incident plane: I'm also given the general expressions for the...

I have a very basic question regarding jones matrixes. So for Linear polarized light in the x direction the jones matrix would be (1,0) And for linear polarized light in the y direction the jones matrix would be (0,1) But when light is linearly polarized in a 45 degree angle from the x-axis...

Homework Statement Linearly polarized light in the x direction with wave number ##k_0## travels in the z direction. It enters a medium such that a RHCP component of the wave and a LHCP component each accumulate a phase of ##n_Rk_0z## and ##n_Lk_0z## respectively, where z is the distance...

I would like to measure the DoLP of outside daylight at the horizon with the sun overhead (midday in summer). Found this equation: DoLP = (reflectanceS - reflectanceP) / (reflectanceS + reflectanceP) Where S and P are defined: “The two orthogonal polarization planes are s, perpendicular to the...

Homework Statement Write down the (real) electric and magnetic fields for a monochromatic plane wave of amplitude Eo, frequency w, and phase angle zero traveling in the direction from the origin to the point (1,1,1) with polarization parallel to the xz plane. I understand how to write the...

This may be a dumb question, but maybe someone can help me out: Consider a pair of entangled photons A and B, fired at respectively Alice and Bob who both let it go through a polarisation filter at different angles. Now Alice establishes that half of the photons get through her filter, and half...

I'm an undergraduate in Physics and just cracked open some QM books, some seem to start with polarization and a strange way of introducing operators, while others start with the wavefunction and then go into harmonic oscilators, then the hydrogen atom etc.. What does polarization have to do...

Un-polarized light is incident upon two polarization filters and do not have their transmission axes aligned. If 18% of the light passes through this combination of filters, what is the angle between the transmission axes of the filters. I got 64 degrees using I = Imax(cosΦ)^2 but the correct...

Hey there, What would happen if I had a half-wave plate, and I rotated it at like 1 Hz? If I stick a linear polarizer on the other end, what would my outcoming beam look like if the incoming one was natural light?

I am trying to solve a problem my camera exhibits. It has a sensor with 6000x3376 pixels. HD video is 1920x1080. In order to reduce the amount of information to the processor the camera throws away 2 out of 3 pixel lines. this creates a problem with thin lines tike telephone lines and makes...

Hi I want to calculate the necessary incident polarization of a light beam at a given angle of incidence (theta_i) that reflects off BK7 glass (n = 1.5168) and is linearly polarized (i.e., 45 degrees). I know how to do similar calculations for incident natural unpolarized light, but not in the...

Light reflecting off a mirror actually penetrates a short distance into the mirror surface material. In metals, this distance is very short (much less than a wavelength) and so can be neglected. But metals tend to also absorb ~10% of the light, which is undesirable. Today’s modern multilayer...

Homework Statement Linearly polarized light of wavelength 5890 A is incident normally on a birefringent crystal that has its optic axis parallel to the face of the crystal, along the x axis. If the incident light is polarized at an angle of 45° to the x and y axes, what is the probability that...

Homework Statement We have a crude model for the polarization of a hydrogen atom, by approximating its 1s orbital with a uniformly charged ball of radius a. What is the (negative) charge density of the electron cloud? What is the electric field inside the cloud, at the point with radius vector...

Imagine that one has a single photon of 632nm. It enters the back end of an open-ended HeNe laser tube - one with no mirrors - and along its path, causes the emission of another photon. According to the wikipedia entry on stimulated emission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulated_emission)...

Hi. We can write a polarised photon as ##\left|\alpha\right\rangle=\cos(\alpha)\left|\updownarrow\right\rangle+\sin(\alpha)\left|\leftrightarrow\right\rangle##. Trigonometry gives us $$\left\langle\alpha | \beta\right\rangle=\cos(\alpha)\cos(\beta)+\sin(\alpha)\sin(\beta)=\cos(\alpha-\beta)$$...

I have several questions about the scattering of light. Air molecules scatter sunlight and makes the sky blue, many books say that the air molecules are oscillated by E field and so they becomes sources of EM wave. Is it because the air molecules have charges? I wonder if air molecules or...

From a textbook I read something like this: "When sunlight is reflected from a horizontal surface, the plane of incidence is vertical, and the reflected light contains a preponderance of light that is polarized in the horizontal direction... The manufacturer makes the polarizing axis of the lens...

What is the best source for understanding the membrane polarization effect in rocks??

Dear All: I have recently encountered a small question regarding the determination of the degree of circular polarization of light. In an optical experiment, we are trying to create a circular polarized light beam by passing a HeNe-laser through a linear polarizer and a quarter wave plate (in...

Is this statement correct: ? "The effect of making this observation is to force the photon entirely into the state of parallel or entirely into the state of perpendicular polarization." * I don't see how you can talk about how the polarization of a photon changes if the photon gets absorbed...