Luis Aina, Alfredo2023-06-202023-06-202005-06-221050-294710.1103/PhysRevA.71.063815https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/51501©2005 The American Physical Society. I thank Professor J. J. Gil for valuable comments and suggestions. This work has been supported by Project No. FIS2004-01814 of the Spanish Dirección General de Investigación del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia.We introduce a probability distribution for polarization of three-dimensional quantum light fields as a marginal of the quadrature Q function for a three-mode field by removing the variables irrelevant for polarization (total intensity and global phased. The probability distribution turns out to be determined by projection on SU(3) coherent states. We introduce a degree of polarization as the distance between the polarization distribution and the uniform distribution associated with completely unpolarized light. We study the relation between two- and three-dimensional polarization by considering field states with a component in the vacuum state. We apply this formalism to some relevant field states.engjournal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.71.063815http://journals.aps.org/open access535Electromagnetic-wave polarizationCoherent statesPhase-spaceDensity-matrixQuasiprobability distributionsHarmonic-oscillatorSpin statesUncertaintyOperatorsLocalizationÓptica (Física)2209.19 Óptica Física