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Polarized light (or any EM wave) works by having an unidirectional orientation of the transverse EM waves. Fine, but that is a description of light (EM radiation) by EM fields. Deeper with a layer, we have a bunch of photons. Spin-1 bosons flying away with $c$.

How are they different if we have polarized light? What quantum numbers of the photons are different (distributed unevenly) if the light is polarized?

peterh
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1 Answers1

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Photon can be classified in terms of spin eigenstates with $s=1$ and $m=\pm \frac 1 2$:

$\chi_{\pm} = |1, \pm\frac 1 2\rangle $

These states correspond to circular polarized light (either left and right, or vice versa).

Linear combinations of them are linear polarized light.

JEB
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