Classical and quantum Malus laws
- 1 April 1995
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review A
- Vol. 51 (4) , 2785-2788
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.51.2785
Abstract
The classical and the quantum Malus laws for light and spin are discussed. It is shown that for spin 1/2, the quantum Malus law is equivalent in form to the classical Malus law provided the statistical average involves a quasidistribution function that can become negative. A generalization of Malus’s law for arbitrary spin s is obtained in the form of a Feynman path-integral representation for the Malus amplitude. The classical limit of the Malus amplitude for s→∞ is discussed.Keywords
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