Phase Holonomy in Optical Interferometry

Abstract

The delivering of two-frequency beams by optical fibres and interferometers and the interference of polarized waves is studied by using Jones' formalism and the complex-wave representation. Polarization encoding is shown to make the relation between the phase of the interference pattern and the difference in the optical path of interfering beams nonlinear, owing to the geometric contribution to the phase made by misalignments and unequal ellipticity of the normal modes of beam and interferometer. The polarization transport is analysed with the aid of the Poincaré representation, and a complete picture of the phenomena underlying nonlinearity and geometric noise is given. In the case of small aberrations approximate formulae and experimental observations are reported as well.