Re: How do polarizers affect photon counts?

From: Fred Chen (flipsu5_at_comcast.net)
Date: 10/16/04 

Date: 15 Oct 2004 23:01:51 -0700

thomastrotter2005@juno.com (Thomas Trotter) wrote in message news:<21970122.0410150834.52b7f7a5@posting.google.com>...
> flipsu5@comcast.net (Fred Chen) wrote in message news:<2dd6d035.0410051730.3cd81f83@posting.google.com>...
> > With one polarizer in each arm, rate of coincidental detection depends
> > on the correlation between the photons in the two arms. It is stated
> > above that the two polarizations are identical because they are from
> > the same oscillator, so both photons will be detected at 50% overall
> > rate if the polarizers are aligned. If the polarizers are crossed 90
> > deg, then you can't get both photons detected, one will be blocked.
> > What matters here is how one polarizer is aligned to the polarization
> > of the detected photon in the other arm. Using that as the axis, it
> > should be clear how Malus' Law can be applied again.
>
> Referring specifically to photon pairs emitted
> via atomic calcium cascades, the notion that
> members of a pair are polarized the same
> (via emission from the same atom)
> would seem to be contradicted by Bell's
> theorem.
>
> How is this dealt with? Is there something
> about the common polarization (or whatever)
> that's being analyzed in the coincidence
> counting experiments that's not well understood?
> Or, do we just go straight to instantaneous
> interactions between the spatially separated
> polarizers, or photons, or detectors as the
> 'explanation' for the coincidence correlation
> curves which follow Malus' Law?

Malus's Law determines the probabilities on both sides of Bell's
inequality. Rather than thinking of the two photons as coincidentally
the same polarization, think of them as entangled (single state).

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