Quantum Complementarities in Vectorial Light Fields
Andreas Norrman
Center for Photonics Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland
The principle of complementarity, dictating that quantum systems share mutually exclusive qualities, has had a major significance for the foundations of physics and even a profound impact on the interpretation of the fundamental nature of reality [1]. The arguably most recognized manifestation of quantum complementarity is wave–particle duality, which puts a trade-off for the wave and particle characteristics of a quantum object. Such duality can be formulated in a quantitative manner in two-way interferometry, stating that “which-path information” (particle behavior) is complementary to the visibility of intensity fringes (wave behavior) [2]. Photons, however, may exhibit interference not only in the form of intensity fringes but also in the form of polarization-state fringes, a unique property of vectorial (nonuniformly polarized) light that has to date been mostly ignored in complementarity contexts. Here we consider implications of such polarization modulation in the seminal double-slit setup and establish a set of general complementarity relations for quantized vector-light fields [3–5], revealing several foundational aspects about the dual wave–particle nature of the photon.
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[2] B.-G. Englert, “Fringe visibility and which-way information: an inequality”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 2154–2157 (1996).
[3] A. Norrman, K. Blomstedt, T. Setälä, and A. T. Friberg, “Complementarity and polarization modulation in photon interference”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 040401 (2017).
[4] A. Norrman, A. T. Friberg, and G. Leuchs, “Vector-light quantum complementarity and the degree of polarization”, Optica 7, 93–97 (2020).
[5] E. Pillinen, A. Halder, A. T. Friberg, T. Setälä, and A. Norrman, “Geometric phase and wave–particle duality of the photon”, arXiv:2310.20273 (2023).
