Maximum-likelihood estimation prevents unphysical Mueller matrices

Abstract

We show that the method of maximum-likelihood estimation, recently introduced in the context of quantum process tomography, can be applied to the determination of Mueller matrices characterizing the polarization properties of classical optical systems. Contrary to linear reconstruction algorithms, the proposed method yields physically acceptable Mueller matrices even in presence of uncontrolled experimental errors. We illustrate the method on the case of an unphysical measured Mueller matrix taken from the literature.

3 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (4)

• Ancilla-assisted quantum process tomography
• Optical telecom networks as weak quantum measurements with post- selection
• Maximum-likelihood reconstruction of CP maps
• Quantum measurement of the degree of polarization of a light beam

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