Angular distributions and polarization correlations of the two-photon spherical states

Abstract

We have analyzed in detail the angular polarization properties in the center of mass reference frame of Landau's two-photon spherical states in momentum space. The angular distributions for fixed values of J and M do not depend on the parity but are defined by two different functions of the polar angle between the relative momentum and the quantization axes. The two-photon polarization density matrices are derived for each values of J, M , and P . The linear polarization correlations of individual photons are analyzed in detail. We find, besides the usual correlation laws for J ≥ 2 in terms of sin and cos of the angle between the orientation of the analyzers, correlations in terms of the sum of the orientation angles of the analyzers.