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Physical Review A

Moments ofPfunctions and nonclassical depths of quantum states

Ching Tsung Lee

Published May 1, 1992• 76 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The practical aspect of the moment problem of the P function is developed; i.e., a simple explicit expression for the P function in terms of its moments and the derivatives of the Dirac \ensuremath{\delta} function in the complex domain is derived. Its connection with the concept of the nonclassical depth of a quantum state introduced recently is explored. The basic formulas derived are used in the calculations of several specific examples that are popular in the quantum-optics community, such as photon-number state, binomial state, two-photon thermal state, squeezed-vacuum state, etc.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.45.6586

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The practical aspect of the moment problem of the P function is developed; i.e., a simple explicit expression for the P function in terms of its moments and the derivatives of the Dirac \ensuremath{\delta} function in the complex domain is derived. Its connection with the concept of the nonclassical depth of a quantum state introduced recently is explored. The basic formulas derived are used in the calculations of several specific examples that are popular in the quantum-optics community, such as photon-number state, binomial state, two-photon thermal state, squeezed-vacuum state, etc.
Practically applicable criteria for the nonclassicality of quantum states are formulated in terms of different types of moments. For this purpose the moments of the creation and annihilation operators, of two quadratures, and of a quadrature and the photon number operator turn out to be useful. It is shown that all the required moments can be determined by homodyne correlation measurements. An example of a nonclassical effect that is easily characterized by our methods is amplitude-squared squeezing.
One of the most relevant problems in the quantum theory is the question whether the appropriate state of the system can be described within a classical theory. The famous examples of nonclassical states are Schrodinger-cats states or entanglement states. In spite of many practical applications of entanglement as a special kind of nonclassicality (like quantum teleportation [1], dense coding [2], or implementation of super-fast [3] and fast algorithms [4]), we still have difficulties with describing and specifying it. One cannot find such an operational optimal method, which would allow us to maximally use the technological and scientific potential arising from the adaptation properties of quantum correlations. Thus, my thesis is focused on giving a proposal of a theoretical recipe for constructing experimentally achievable procedures for the study of quantum correlations. In my thesis I have focused on quantum correlations described in terms of nonclassicality (quantumness) and specific kind of it,i.e., entanglement. The nonclassicality definition, used by me in the thesis, is based on the Glauber-Sudarshan function (P -function). One can assume, that a state is nonclassical, if its P -function is negative or more singular than Dirac’s delta [5]. As follows, the state is nonclassical, when its P -function cannot be treated as a “real” probabilistic distribution. Based on specific properties of the P -function, Agarwal and Tara [6], as well as, Shchukin, Richter and Vogel [7, 8] proposed nonclassicality and entanglement [9] criteria based on matrices of moments of annihilation and creation operators. The operational procedures for analyzing nonclassicality and an efficient method for measuring such moments developed by Shchukin and Vogel [10] creates basis for my thesis. It can be seen that the nonclassicality criteria based on matrices of moments offer an effective way of deriving specific inequalities, which might be useful in the verification of nonclassicality of particular states generated in experiments. Therefore, criteria constructed based on the above definition of nonclassicality can be used to find practical and effective methods of generating and testing nonclassicality and, therefore, also quantum entanglement of optical fields. The results presented in my thesis can be divided into three main groups: 1. Finding operational and practical criteria to classify states in terms of nonclassicality and entanglement based on fundamental classical inequalities like Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. It was also shown how some known entanglement inequalities can be derived as nonclassicality inequalities or as sums of more than one inequality [Bartkowiak2010a]. 2. Describing properties and behaviour of quantum correlations for different optical fields (e.g. for multiand single-mode systems, for interacting and noninteracting modes). In particular, general occurrence of sudden vanishing of nonclassicality, which can be observed not only for twoor multimode but also for single-mode fields, was proven [Bartkowiak2011]. 3. Finding the methods of generating and testing of quantum correlations, which would be practical and easy to implement with available resources in both linear and nonlinear optics.
A continuous parameter introduced into the convolution transformation between P and Q functions leads to a measure of how nonclassical quantum states are with values ranging from 0 to 1: For photon-number states, the value is 1, the maximum possible. For squeezed vacuum states, it is a monotonically increasing function of the squeeze parameter with values varying from 0 to 1/2. This measure is identical to the minimum number of thermal photon necessary to destroy whatever nonclassical effects existing in the quantum states.
The photon-number distribution for the gray-body radiation given by Bekenstein and Schiffer [Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 2512 (1994)] is used to study its nonclassical effects. It is shown that as the absorptivity varies from 0 to 1, the gray-body state changes from an extremely nonclassical state to an extremely classical one. The critical point of this transition is located. It is discovered that the negative binomial state is a special case of the gray-body radiation at the transition point; hence, it is an example of borderline states such as the coherent state. The explicit expressions for the factorial moments, the Q parameter, the P function, and the nonclassical depth of the gray-body state as functions of absorptivity and temperature are derived.
“The word ‘classical’ means only one thing in science: it's wrong!” We have previously emphasized the fact that all states of light are quantum mechanical and are thus nonclassical, deriving some quantum features from the discreteness of the photons. Of course, in practice, the nonclassical features of light are difficult to observe. (We shall use “quantum mechanical” and “nonclassical” more or less interchangeably here.) Already we have discussed what must certainly be the most nonclassical of all nonclassical states of light – the single-photon state. Yet, as we shall see, it is possible to have nonclassical states involving a very large number of photons. But we need a criterion for nonclassicality. Recall that in Chapter 5 we discussed such a criterion in terms of the quasi-probability distribution known as the P function, P (α). States for which P (α) is positive everywhere or no more singular than a delta function, are classical whereas those for which P (α) is negative or more singular than a delta function are nonclassical. We have shown, in fact, that P (α) for a coherent state is a delta function, and Hillery has shown that all other pure states of the field will have functions P (α) that are negative in some regions of phase space and are more singular than a delta. It is evident that the variety of possible nonclassical states of the field is quite large.