A modified interferometer that introduces position and momentum shifts in mutually orthogonal directions can transform optical modes by raising and lowering radial and azimuthal mode indices. The action of this interferometer can be generalized in the form of a pair of twisting operators, which can be further written in terms of the ladder operators of the 2-dimensional harmonic oscillator. For lower order input modes there is good agreement between theory and experiment, but as the input mode becomes more complex, experimental results start to deviates from first-order theory. This is due to the shifts becoming larger relative to beam structure. We discuss how higher order corrections can be calculated for such cases.
We revisit the quantum weak measurement (QWM) by sketching the polarisation state dynamics on the Poincaré sphere and the associated geometric phase, which is considered the soul of QWM. Our experimental arrangement comprises a coherent laser beam as a source of pure state, two polarizers corresponding to pre- and post-selection and a tilted wave plate placed in-between them to introduce weak interaction. The pre-selected state is a linearly polarised beam that can be represented as a point on the Poincaré sphere equator and the weak interaction with the wave plate results in a small spread in S3 axis. Now, an orthogonal projection of this state leads two different geodesics on the surface of the sphere through its poles, starting from both sides of the spread to the orthogonal point. The post-selection is made by moving the projection point slightly away from the orthogonal position so that both geodesics shift to the equator which results in a rapid accumulation of geometric phase in the beam crosssection. A gradient in the linear momentum is developed as a consequence which gives amplified shift in the beam position.
Spatially varying polarization modulation with polarization singularities are realized using a birefringent wedge pair (BWP), which is due to coherent superposition of orthogonally polarized beams. We studied the degree of polarization, visibility and the degree of local coherence as a function of spatial coherence using Stokes polarimetric technique in and around the identified polarization singular patterns in the beam cross-section. Through these we illustrate the unification of coherence and polarization.
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