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Article Dans Une Revue Journal of Mathematical Physics Année : 2007

Symmetries in coherence theory of partially polarized light

Résumé

The symmetry properties of the second order statistical characteristics of partially polarized and partially coherent light that appear when one multiplies the electric fields by non singular Jones matrices at two different points in the space-time domain are analyzed. Since the application of such deterministic linear transformations do not introduce random fluctuations between the two fields, they do not modify their intrinsic coherence properties. For a better understanding of coherence properties, it is thus interesting to analyze the symmetry properties introduced by these transformations. It is first shown that the invariant subsets generated by the action of deterministic non singular Jones matrices applied to each electric field correspond to constant intrinsic degrees of coherence. Then the subgroup of transformations that keep invariant the second order statistical properties are determined and it is demonstrated that four kinds of different symmetry groups can appear. It is shown that the recently introduced intrinsic degrees of coherence allow one to characterize the kind of symmetry group of the analyzed light while such a characterization cannot be obtained with a unique scalar degree of coherence. A practical consequence of this result is that two degrees of coherence are necessary to characterize the kind of symmetry of the second order statistical properties of partially coherent and partially polarized light.
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Dates et versions

hal-00165719 , version 1 (27-07-2007)

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  • HAL Id : hal-00165719 , version 1

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Philippe Réfrégier. Symmetries in coherence theory of partially polarized light. Journal of Mathematical Physics, 2007, 48 (3). ⟨hal-00165719⟩
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