Polarization dependence of heavy- and light-hole quantum beats

Simultaneous excitation of heavy- and light-hole quantum-well excitons with linearly polarized ultrashort laser pulses results in oscillating four-wave-mixing and pump-probe signals. These are elliptically polarized, except for exactly parallel and perpendicular incident polarizations, for which they are also linearly polarized. In the latter case, the heavy- and light-hole components are in phase or out of phase, respectively.