All Questions
7
questions
0
votes
1
answer
399
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Phase Shifting Beam Splitter
I am trying to make sense of all these answers in: Phase added on reflection at a beam splitter? and web search results. So my understanding is that the actual phase shift depends on the beam splitter ...
- 613
2
votes
2
answers
250
views
How does partially constructive and partial destructive interference work in interferometers?
From what I have gathered, complete constructive or destructive interference results in all light or no light traveling a given path of an interferometer (correct me if this is incorrect). However, ...
3
votes
1
answer
604
views
Evolution of the operators in Mach-Zehnder interferometer
I have trouble understanding how the operators that change the initial state, change when adding extra splitters. As an example, I will use an idealized Mach-Zehnder interferometer where the splitters ...
- 249
3
votes
1
answer
215
views
$U(2)$ or $SU(2)$? Interferometers and Jones matrices
Recently I've been trying to understand why the scattering matrices that describe an interferometer should be $SU(2)$ matrices rather than $U(2)$.
The condition of unitarity is undiscussed as it ...
- 31
16
votes
5
answers
8k
views
Phase added on reflection at a beam splitter?
If we have light of a particular phase that is incident on a beam splitter, I assume the transmitted beam undergoes no phase change. But I thought that the reflected beam would undergo a phase change ...
3
votes
2
answers
508
views
Polarizing beam splitters for X-rays?
What is the lower bound for the wavelength concerning polarizing beam splitters?
Especially I ask for interferometer experiments with single photons. Of course I know that they exist for all ...
- 1,403
9
votes
3
answers
1k
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Why doesn't the momentum exchange (or lack thereof) between photon and beam-splitter destroy the interference?
I have a question (my very first here) related to 50/50 beam splitters as used in the Mach-Zehnder interferometers (see for example the Wikipedia page).
Let's concentrate on the input beam splitter: ...
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