Entangled states of light in classical polarization theory

Abstract

We formulate the classical polarization theory for light by using entanglement analysis. We demonstrate a route to a systematic and consistent measure of ordinary light polarization that extends automatically to a new understanding of the degree of polarization at a point, when a distinct beam direction is absent. We have drawn on recent work [Qian and Eberly, arXiv 1009.5622] dealing with the conservation of quantum information.