dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaPhoton polarization and Wigner's little group
| Authors | Pawel Caban, Jakub Rembielinski |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/0304120 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0304120 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevA.68.042107 |
| Journal | Phys. Rev. A 68, 042107 (2003) |
Abstract
To discuss one-photon polarization states we find an explicit form of the Wigner's little group element in the massless case for arbitrary Lorentz transformation. As is well known, when analyzing the transformation properties of the physical states, only the value of the phase factor is relevant. We show that this phase factor depends only on the direction of the momentum $\vec{k}/|\vec{k}|$ and does not depend on the frequency $k^0$. Finally, we use this observation to discuss the transformation properties of the linearly polarized photons and the corresponding reduced density matrix. We find that they transform properly under Lorentz group.
{
"annotation_id": "5723c5ce-adb7-441b-a1e9-bc47bae1c374",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:02:00.163000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:02:00.163000Z",
"file_hash": "fb17b16ca5edec0726e597a12383950dddc7e23af7351ab9c45ce3c6b645607d",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "To discuss one-photon polarization states we find an explicit form of the\nWigner\u0027s little group element in the massless case for arbitrary Lorentz\ntransformation. As is well known, when analyzing the transformation properties\nof the physical states, only the value of the phase factor is relevant. We show\nthat this phase factor depends only on the direction of the momentum\n$\\vec{k}/|\\vec{k}|$ and does not depend on the frequency $k^0$. Finally, we use\nthis observation to discuss the transformation properties of the linearly\npolarized photons and the corresponding reduced density matrix. We find that\nthey transform properly under Lorentz group.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/0304120",
"authors": [
"Pawel Caban",
"Jakub Rembielinski"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1103/PhysRevA.68.042107",
"journal_ref": "Phys. Rev. A 68, 042107 (2003)",
"title": "Photon polarization and Wigner\u0027s little group",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0304120"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "3679d016-cb27-4b57-a5eb-b578f0120ba3",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}