Light propagation in a cholesteric medium has been completely discussed by de Vries [2]. The main results are that, for a given frequency, there are two eigenvibrations with quasi-circular polarizations, except i) for high frequencies and ii) near the reflection band (for the vibration having total reflection), where the polarization is linear. Looking at light refracted by a cholesteric prism,...

Under quite generic assumptions the general expression is derived for the probability of circularly polarized photon emission from the longitudinally polarized electron and for the probability of pair creation of longitudinally polarized electron (positron) by circularly polarized photon in oriented crystal in a frame of the quasiclassical operator method. For small angle of incidence the expre...

We present the investigation of high-order disinclination patterns in the spatially variable polarization of a light beam. The beam was prepared by encoding two distinct high-order optical vortices on each of the circular polarization components of the beam. As a consequence, we were able to produce high-index lemon and star patterns, which have positive and negative indices, respectively. By v...

Water vapour concentrations are measured using the optical absorption of a Zeeman-split emission line of an argon discharge lamp. When a longitudinal magnetic field of the proper magnitude is used to split the emission line, two components of opposite circular polarization are produced: one coincident, and one off-resonance with respect to a water vapour absorption line at 10 687.36 cm−1. Diffe...

We report on polarimetric observations of 100 pulsars centered on 774 MHz, made using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), presenting their polarization profiles and polarized flux densities and comparing them with previous observations when possible. For 67 pulsars, these are the first such measurements made. Polarization profiles of 8 millisecond pulsars in our sample show wide profiles and flat p...

The transfer of polarized radiation in stochastic synchrotron sources is explored by means of analytic treatment and Monte Carlo simulations. We argue that the main mechanism responsible for the circular polarization properties of compact synchrotron sources is likely to be Faraday conversion and that, contrary to common expectation, a significant rate of Faraday rotation does not necessarily i...

Based on a vector wave theory of volume holograms, dependence of holographic reconstruction on the polarization states of the writing and reading beams is discussed. It is found that under paraxial approximation the circular polarization holograms provide a better distinction of the reading beams. Characteristics of recording polarization holograms in thick phenanthrenequinone-doped poly(methyl...

Active control of polarization states of electromagnetic waves is highly desirable because of its diverse applications in information processing, telecommunications, and spectroscopy. However, despite the recent advances using artificial materials, most active polarization control schemes require optical stimuli necessitating complex optical setups. We experimentally demonstrate an alternative-...

The present theoretical status of spin-dependent parton densities ∆f(x, Q) of circularly polarized photons is briefly reviewed. It is then demonstrated that measurements of the deep-inelastic spin asymmetry Aγ1 ≃ gγ 1 /F γ 1 and of di-jet rapidity distributions at a future linear e e collider appear to be particularly suited for a determination the spin-dependent photonic quark and gluon densit...