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Physical Review A

Photon statistics of a free-electron laser

Wilhelm Becker, Muhammad Suhail Zubairy

Published Apr 1, 1982• 60 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A fully quantized theory of the free-electron laser in the small-signal regime is presented which allows for a calculation of the photon statistics. For an initial vacuum, we find photon antibunching if the electron momentum is below resonance. We conjecture that, in general, the free-electron laser preserves coherent states only in the absence of gain.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.25.2200

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A fully quantized theory of the free-electron laser in the small-signal regime is presented which allows for a calculation of the photon statistics. For an initial vacuum, we find photon antibunching if the electron momentum is below resonance. We conjecture that, in general, the free-electron laser preserves coherent states only in the absence of gain.
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Starting from an initial state with an electron energy p02{\mathit{p}}_{0}^{2}p02​/2m+\ensuremath{\Elzxh}${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\omega}}}_{\mathit{c}}$/2, a vacuum-laser field, and a coherent wiggler field, I discuss photon statistics in a free-electron laser with an axial-guide magnetic field. It is found that the axial field can weaken the squeezing, enhance the positive (for \ensuremath{\theta}>0) and negative (for \ensuremath{\theta}0) gain, and strengthen the bunching (for \ensuremath{\theta}>0) and antibunching (for \ensuremath{\theta}0).