The degenerate parametric oscillator above threshold is studied with phenomenological stochastic colored (nonwhite) pump noise for arbitrary pump to subharmonic relaxation rate. The current experimental limits of large intracavity threshold photon numbers (very small quantum noise) are considered, allowing for a semiclassical treatment of the system dynamics. A comparison between the effects of isotropic and squeezed pump noise on the internal transient and steady-state fluctuations is presented by simulation of the nonlinear semiclassical stochastic Langevin equations in the Wigner quadrature representation. It is found that the transient squeezing for the system starting in the unstable steady state (the vacuum) is not degraded by stochastic pump noise. A damped oscillatory behavior of the noise levels (periodic exchange of fluctuations between the squeezed quadrature of the signal and the pump) is observed for large damping of the signal in the turn on of pump depletion. Finally, it is shown that the limited squeezing above threshold in the steady state (50%) due to pump depletion can be enhanced if squeezed stochastic noise with sufficient significant spectral components (broadband squeezing) is fed to the pump. The above-threshold steady-state squeezing has been calculated analytically from the linearized stochastic equations and the effects of the time scale associated to the relaxation of the pump noise (the noise correlation time) compared to the dissipative time scale of the system and the pump to subharmonic loss ratio are presented.
The degenerate parametric oscillator above threshold is studied with phenomenological stochastic colored (nonwhite) pump noise for arbitrary pump to subharmonic relaxation rate. The current experimental limits of large intracavity threshold photon numbers (very small quantum noise) are considered, allowing for a semiclassical treatment of the system dynamics. A comparison between the effects of isotropic and squeezed pump noise on the internal transient and steady-state fluctuations is presented by simulation of the nonlinear semiclassical stochastic Langevin equations in the Wigner quadrature representation. It is found that the transient squeezing for the system starting in the unstable steady state (the vacuum) is not degraded by stochastic pump noise. A damped oscillatory behavior of the noise levels (periodic exchange of fluctuations between the squeezed quadrature of the signal and the pump) is observed for large damping of the signal in the turn on of pump depletion. Finally, it is shown that the limited squeezing above threshold in the steady state (50%) due to pump depletion can be enhanced if squeezed stochastic noise with sufficient significant spectral components (broadband squeezing) is fed to the pump. The above-threshold steady-state squeezing has been calculated analytically from the linearized stochastic equations and the effects of the time scale associated to the relaxation of the pump noise (the noise correlation time) compared to the dissipative time scale of the system and the pump to subharmonic loss ratio are presented.
A degenerate parametric oscillator operating above threshold is studied when the cavity is injected by a broadband squeezed light at the pump frequency. Using the solution of the quantum Langevin equations for the signal and pump modes, we have studied the quantum fluctuations in the intracavity and transmitted field quadratures for the signal and pump modes. For the intracavity modes we studied the variance in the field quadratures, and for the transmitted modes we studied the spectra for the variance in the squeezed quadratures. Our results have revealed that the same relative cavity damping rates between the signal and the pump modes that predict enhanced squeezing in the intracavity do not necessarily predict enhanced squeezing in the transmitted modes.
We develop a systematic theory of quantum fluctuations in the driven optical parametric oscillator, including the region near threshold. This allows us to treat the limits imposed by nonlinearities to quantum squeezing and noise reduction in this nonequilibrium quantum phase transition. In particular, we compute the squeezing spectrum near threshold and calculate the optimum value. We find that the optimal noise reduction occurs at different driving fields, depending on the ratio of damping rates. The largest spectral noise reductions are predicted to occur with a very high-Q second-harmonic cavity. Our analytic results agree well with stochastic numerical simulations. We also compare the results obtained in the positive-P representation, as a fully quantum-mechanical calculation, with the truncated Wigner phase-space equation, also known as the semiclassical theory.
The optical parametric oscillator is one of the most well-characterized devices in nonlinear optics, with many useful applications, especially as a frequency converter and as a wide-band amplifier. Novel discoveries made with these devices in the quantum domain include demonstrations of large amounts of both single-mode and two-mode squeezing, and, in the two-mode case, significant quantum intensity correlations between the two modes and quadrature correlations, which provided the first experimental demonstration of the original Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) paradox. In this chapter, a systematic theory is developed of quantum fluctuations in the degenerate parametric oscillator. The quantum statistical effects produced by the degenerate parametric amplifier and oscillator have been intensely studied. As we have seen, the amount of transient squeezing produced in an ideal lossless parametric amplifier was calculated using asymptotic methods by Crouch and Braunstein. It was found to scale inversely with the square root of the initial pump photon number. When the system is put into a cavity, and driving and dissipation are introduced, we find that the steady state of a driven degenerate parametric oscillator bifurcates. There is a single steady state at low driving strengths, but, as the driving field increases, a threshold value is reached and the single state splits and forms two stable states. Below the threshold, a linearized analysis of squeezing in the quantum quadratures is possible; while above this threshold, or critical point, the tunneling time between the two states due to quantum fluctuations can be calculated.
We develop a systematic theory of quantum fluctuations in the driven parametric oscillator (OPO), including the region near threshold. This allows us to treat the limits imposed by nonlinearities to quantum squeezing and noise reduction, in this non-equilibrium quantum phase-transition. In particular, we compute the squeezing spectrum near threshold, and calculate the optimum value. We find that the optimal noise reduction occurs at different driving fields, depending on the ratio of damping rates. The largest spectral noise reductions are predicted to occur with a very high-Q second-harmonic cavity. Our analytic results agree well with stochastic numerical simulations. We also compare the results obtained in the positive-P representation, as a fully quantum mechanical calculation, with the truncated Wigner phase space equation, also known as semiclassical theory.
We calculate the scale of the critical fluctuations in the quantum parametric oscillator at threshold. This allows us to calculate asymptotically the size of both the depletion of the pump mode and the amount of squeezing produced in the signal mode for large system size. In this driven, open quantum system, there is no known solution to the equilibrium density matrix. For this reason these results cannot be obtained using standard canonical ensemble methods. The calculations are compared to time dependent quantum stochastic simulations of the fully nonlinear coupled mode equations. We find that the critical squeezing variance in the output spectrum will scale as ${\mathit{N}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1/2}$, giving the feature that these fluctuations are reduced rather than enhanced near the critical point.
This thesis is primarily a theoretical study of degenerate parametric amplification as a means of generating squeezed-state light. i) A wideband traveling-wave formalism is developed for analyzing quantum mechanically a degenerate parametric amplifier. The formalism is based on spatial differential equations — spatial Langevin equations — that propagate temporal Fourier components of the field through the nonlinear medium. In addition to the parametric nonlinearity, the Langevin equations include absorption and associated fluctuations, dispersion, and pump quantum fluctuations. The dominant effects of dispersion and pump quantum fluctuations on the squeezing produced by a degenerate parametric amplifier are analyzed. ii) The wideband formalism of i) is used to carry out a more detailed analysis of the effects of phase mismatching. With the assumption of a lossless medium and a classical pump, we find that parametric amplification is capable of generating squeezed-state light over a wide band if materials with large χ(2) nonlinearities can be found, and that the squeezing bandwidth can be enhanced by phase mismatching away from degeneracy. iii) We consider again the effect of pump quantum fluctuations on the squeezing produced by parametric amplification. We perform discrete-mode calculations for a parametric amplifier with a quantum pump, and discuss some of the limitations of calculations of this sort in quantum optics. We derive stochastic differential equations (SDEs) for one- and two-mode parametric amplifiers, and from them obtain an iterative solution showing that pump quantum fluctuations impose a limitation on the degree of squeezing obtainable from a parametric amplifier. iv) A possible application of squeezing is considered; in particular, we study the effects of squeezing the intracavity noise in a laser oscillator. We solve the classical noise problem of a realistic laser model by making a bold — and possibly unrealizable — assumption, that the in-phase and quadrature Langevin sources which are responsible for the "noisiness" of the laser can be squeezed. We show that the effect of squeezing the in-phase quadrature is to reduce the phase noise, including the linewidth, of the laser but, due to amplitude-phase coupling, not to eliminate them altogether.