Quantum fluctuations annihilate an optical soliton

D. Yu. Kuznetsov

А. В. Белинский

Dmitrii Kouznetsov

The behaviour of optical solitons in non-linear fibres with dispersion is discussed. The possibility of quantum decay of the fundamental soliton is investigated. The evolution of the second-order correlation function is analysed. A theorem on the evolution of the fourth-order correlation function is presented. It provides the proof of the stability of the fundamental soliton.

Demin Yao

Quantum fluctuations of optical solitons in fibers are discussed on the basis of the exact quantum states in the frame of the quantum nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. Position and momentum fluctuations as well as quadrature phase fluctuations are calculated, and explicit results are expressed in terms of the intrinsic quantum parameters. Soliton wave-packet spreading and phase-diffusion phenomena are clearly demonstrated, and the corresponding squeezing effects are analyzed. In particular, soliton amplitude squeezing is investigated in an experimental setup of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer containing an optical fiber. Coherent states for quantum solitons are discussed with attention given to their dynamical preservability. Compared with previous linearized approaches, the present study may provide a more fundamental treatment to quantum fluctuations of solitons.

А. В. Белинский

Melissa A. Guidry, Daniil M. Lukin, Ki Youl Yang +1 more

Soliton microcombs are self-organized pulses of light sustained in driven Kerr microresonators, intensively studied for applications in integrated photonic technologies and for their rich nonlinear dynamics. In this work, we theoretically study the collective dynamics of the quantum fluctuations of soliton microcombs. We find that the mean field of a dissipative Kerr soliton crystal is accompanied by pulses of squeezed multimode vacuum and derives its operational stability from the strong detuning of the below-threshold parametric process. We present a photonic architecture that enables independent control of the above- and below-threshold states and achieves a high degree of squeezing (>15dB) in the output waveguide with realistic losses. Our work elucidates the quantum dynamics of formation and annihilation in dissipative Kerr soliton systems, and establishes a pathway for the realization of a practical integrated source of multimode squeezed light.