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American Journal of Physics

A squeezed-state primer

Richard W. Henry, Sharon C. Glotzer

Published Apr 1, 1988• 82 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Using only elementary quantum-mechanical concepts, the statistical properties of various harmonic oscillator states that are linear superpositions of its energy eigenfunctions are described. These superpositions include coherent states and squeezed (or two-photon coherent) states. The resulting Gaussian, minimum-uncertainty wave packets are shown to oscillate back and forth for both coherent and squeezed states, but with an oscillating ‘‘width’’ for the squeezed states. Also examined are the principles underlying the production of squeezed electromagnetic waves via parametric amplification or four-wave mixing, their measurement by homodyne detection, and the connection between squeezing and non-Poissonian counting statistics.

DOI
10.1119/1.15631

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Using only elementary quantum-mechanical concepts, the statistical properties of various harmonic oscillator states that are linear superpositions of its energy eigenfunctions are described. These superpositions include coherent states and squeezed (or two-photon coherent) states. The resulting Gaussian, minimum-uncertainty wave packets are shown to oscillate back and forth for both coherent and squeezed states, but with an oscillating ‘‘width’’ for the squeezed states. Also examined are the principles underlying the production of squeezed electromagnetic waves via parametric amplification or four-wave mixing, their measurement by homodyne detection, and the connection between squeezing and non-Poissonian counting statistics.
Certain superposition (linear combination) of energy eigenfunctions of linear harmonic oscillators are called coherent states because they are of significance in optics for the representation of coherent light waves. A hallmark of coherent states is that the variances (squares of the uncertainties) of x and px are constant in time and further their product becomes the minimum value allowed by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. On the other hand, some linear combinations of harmonic oscillator energy functions give rise to squeezed states . A curious property of squeezed states is that the variances of x and px oscillate in time 180o out of phase with one another with the frequency twice of the oscillator. The wave packet of a coherent state possesses a minimum uncertainty. 〈x〉 and 〈px〉 have the same oscillatory forms as in the classical case. The coherent states have also been called minimum uncertainty coherent states, the Schrödinger coherent states or the Glauber coherent states [1-6]. The squeezed states are sometimes referred to in the literature as two-photon coherent states and generalized coherent states.
This chapter presents some basic aspects of coherent and squeezed states. Certain superpositions of energy Eigen functions of linear harmonic oscillators are called coherent states because they are of significance in optics for the representation of coherent light waves. The chapter obtains the Heisenberg uncertainty relation for the harmonic oscillator states and shows that it is a minimum for ground state. It defines coherent states and shows that they are the minimum uncertainty product states. Coherent states were constructed for many interesting potentials including infinite well and Poschl-Teller potentials and Morse potential. A particular quantum state of a spin system which most closely resembles a classical spin is termed as a spin coherent state. Use of squeezed states in quantum cryptography, quantum distribution of keys, extended coherence time, quantum engineering, teleportation, optics, detection of gravitational waves, quantum metrology and laser interferometers have been analyzed.
Following the development of the quantum theory of radiation and with the advent of the laser, the states of the field that most nearly describe a classical electromagnetic field were widely studied. In order to realize such ‘classical’ states, we will consider the field generated by a classical monochromatic current, and find that the quantum state thus generated has many interesting properties and deserves to be called a coherent state . An important consequence of the quantization of the radiation field is the associated uncertainty relation for the conjugate field variables. It therefore appears reasonable to propose that the wave function which corresponds most closely to the classical field must have minimum uncertainty for all times subject to the appropriate simple harmonic potential. In this chapter we show that a displaced simple harmonic oscillator ground state wave function satisfies this property and the wave packet oscillates sinusoidally in the oscillator potential without changing shape as shown in Fig. 2.1. This coherent wave packet always has minimum uncertainty, and resembles the classical field as nearly as quantum mechanics permits. The corresponding state vector is the coherent state |α〉, which is the eigenstate of the positive frequency part of the electric field operator, or, equivalently, the eigenstate of the destruction operator of the field. Classically an electromagnetic field consists of waves with welldefined amplitude and phase. Such is not the case when we treat the field quantum mechanically.
We describe a six-parameter family of the minimum-uncertainty squeezed states for the harmonic oscillator in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. They are derived by the action of corresponding maximal kinematical invariance group on the standard ground state solution. We show that the product of the variances attains the required minimum value 1/4 only at the instances that one variance is a minimum and the other is a maximum, when the squeezing of one of the variances occurs. The generalized coherent states are explicitly constructed and their Wigner function is studied. The overlap coefficients between the squeezed, or generalized harmonic, and the Fock states are explicitly evaluated in terms of hypergeometric functions. The corresponding photons statistics are discussed and some applications to quantum optics, cavity quantum electrodynamics, and superfocusing in channeling scattering are mentioned. Explicit solutions of the Heisenberg equations for radiation field operators with squeezing are found.
With the successes of the laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory, we anticipate increased interest in working with squeezed states in the undergraduate and graduate quantum-mechanics classroom. Because squeezed-coherent states are minimum uncertainty states, their wavefunctions in position and momentum space must be Gaussians. But this result is rarely discussed in treatments of squeezed states in quantum textbooks or quantum optics textbooks. In this work, we show three different ways to construct the wavefunction for squeezed-coherent states: (i) a differential equation-based approach; (ii) an approach that uses an expansion in terms of the simple-harmonic oscillator wavefunctions; and (iii) a fully operator-based approach. We do this to illustrate that the concept of the wavefunction can be introduced no matter what methodology an instructor wishes to use. We hope that working with the wavefunction will help demystify the concept of a squeezed-coherent state.