Tuesday 4 June 2019

quantum mechanics - Is a single photon always circularly polarized?


While trying to understand polarization in quantum field theory, I wondered how a single photon could go through a linear polarizer. I found a paper which asked "Is a single photon always circularly polarized?"


This paper proposes an experiment to determine if a single photon can be linearly polarized, or if only pairs of photons can be linearly polarized. It suggests that there may be non-trivial consequences regarding all Bell experiments with a "linearly polarized single photon" (because such thing may not exist).


The paper is from 2014 and the experiment seems simple if you have the right equipment, so do we have the result of the experiment yet?



Answer



Answering my own question to close a far too long debate that heated far too much in my opinion.


To sum up :



According to mainstream physics, quantum mechanics : No, a single photon isn't always circularly polarized. See Lubos's good answer if you want more details.


The paper is unorthodox science, as it proposes a test to falsify in quantum mechanics.


A little advice to any beginners to the field like me, be aware that because there has been many unsuccessful attempts to falsify QM in the past, any talking about any new experiment to falsify and you will be looked upon as crackpot.


A little QM self fulfilling prophecy joke to end on a more light tone : "Obviously because we live in a QM world, any experiment that would falsify QM can not happen" :)


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