title: Polarization
text: # Polarization
  
  Polarization or polarisation may refer to:
  
  ## Mathematics
  
  * Polarization of an Abelian variety, in the mathematics of complex manifolds
  * Polarization of an algebraic form, a technique for expressing a homogeneous polynomial in a simpler fashion by adjoining more variables
  * Polarization identity, expresses an inner product in terms of its associated norm
  * Polarization (Lie algebra)
  
  ## Physical sciences
  
  * Polarization (physics), the ability of waves to oscillate in more than one direction, in particular polarization of light, responsible for example for the glare-reducing effect of polarized sunglasses
     * Polarization (antenna), the state of polarization (in the above sense) of electromagnetic waves transmitted by or received by a radio antenna
  * Dielectric polarization, charge separation in insulating materials:
     * Polarization density, volume dielectric polarization
     * Dipolar polarization, orientation of permanent dipoles
     * Ionic polarization, displacement of ions in a crystal
     * Maxwell–Wagner–Sillars polarization, slow long-distance charge separation in dielectric spectroscopy on inhomogeneous soft matter
  * Polarization (electrochemistry), a change in the equilibrium potential of an electrochemical reaction
  * Concentration polarization, the shift of the electrochemical potential difference across an electrochemical cell from its equilibrium value
  * Spin polarization, the degree by which the spin of elementary particles is aligned to a given direction
  * Polarizability, an electrical property of atoms or molecules and a separate magnetic property of subatomic particles
     * Polarization function, a feature of some molecular modelling methods
  * Photon polarization, the mathematical link between wave polarization and spin polarization
  * Vacuum polarization, a process in which a background electromagnetic field produces virtual electron-positron pairs
  
  ## Social sciences
  
  * Polarization (economics), faster decrease of moderate-skill jobs relative to low-skill and high-skill jobs
  * Political polarization, when public opinion divides and becomes oppositional
  * Social polarization, segregation of society into social groups, from high-income to low-income
  * Group polarization, tendency of a group to make more extreme decisions than individuals' initial inclinations
     * Attitude polarization, when disagreement becomes more extreme as different parties consider evidence
  * Racial polarization, when a population with varying ancestry is divided into distinct racial groups
  
  ## Others
  
  * Polarization (album), an album by American jazz trombonist and composer Julian Priester
  * Polarization, in many disciplines, is a tendency to be located close to one of the opposite ends of a continuum
  