Coherent states with elliptical polarization

E. Colavita, S. Hacyan

Published 2004-07-08, updated 2005-01-20Version 2

Coherent states of the two dimensional harmonic oscillator are constructed as superpositions of energy and angular momentum eigenstates. It is shown that these states are Gaussian wave-packets moving along a classical trajectory, with a well defined elliptical polarization. They are coherent correlated states with respect to the usual cartesian position and momentum operators. A set of creation and annihilation operators is defined in polar coordinates, and it is shown that these same states are precisely coherent states with respect to such operators.