Cohesion accounting of complementarity in path--polarization interferometry

Abstract

Two-path complementarity in polarized interferometric fields is reconsidered by retaining the complete path--polarization density matrix instead of reducing the description to the path degree of freedom from the outset. The familiar relation connecting the Cartesian visibility components, path predictability, and reduced-state mixedness is recovered as a marginal consequence of the reduced path state and is not interpreted as a new complementarity law. Attention is focused instead on the full path--polarization description in a real reference basis adapted to the path and linear-polarization degrees of freedom. Within this framework, the normalized purity separates naturally into path, polarization, and path--polarization-correlation contributions, while the antisymmetric sector provides a sector-resolved measure of cohesion. The resulting decomposition identifies which parts of the complete state store phase-sensitive interferometric coherence and which contributions are removed when polarization is traced out. The formalism therefore provides a sector-resolved accounting of complementarity within the full path--polarization state and clarifies the connection between reduced visibility loss, polarization marking, path--polarization correlations, and quantum-eraser recovery. The present article establishes the framework and associated purity decomposition; a more detailed exploration of full path--polarization complementarity and its dynamical aspects is left for future work.