Optical Coherence Theory—Recent Developments

R.W. Smith

Roger Edgar

To write a book on recent developments in such a volatile subject as optical coherence theory cannot be a simple task; to confine it to the format of a Methuen monograph must compound the difficulties. It is therefore rather surprising to find Dr Troup's book published in this series, which usually provides us with reliable and straightforward introductions to physical subjects.

Chuanxin Bian, Guofeng Zhang, Joseph H. W. Lee

The purpose of this article is to present an efficient coherent feedback control technique for squeezing enhancement of degenerate parametric amplifiers (DPAs). The feedback controllers to be designed are in the form of linear quantum stochastic systems which can be described by quantum feedback networks theory recently developed. The problem of squeezing enhancement is formulated as a non-convex constrained nonlinear programming problem, whose solution yields the coherent feedback controllers to be designed. Compared with the previous study, the proposed approach reveals clear advantage when DPAs are lossy, as is always the case in practice. Based on the recently developed quantum network synthesis theory, we show how the designed coherent feedback controllers can be implemented by means of quantum optical devices.

Olga Korotkova, Greg Gbur

L. Mandeļ, E. Wolf

Introduction We will now study the properties of fluctuating electromagnetic fields, paying attention mainly to the optical region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It seems hardly necessary to stress that every electromagnetic field found in nature has some fluctuations associated with it. Even though these fluctuations are, as a rule, much too rapid to be observed directly, one can deduce their existence from suitable experiments that provide information about correlations between the fluctuations at two or more space-time points. The simplest manifestations of correlations in optical fields are the well-known interference effects that arise when two light beams that originate from the same source are superposed. With the availability of modern light detectors and electronic circuitry of very short resolving time, other types of correlations in optical fields began to be studied in more recent times. These investigations, as well as the development of lasers and other novel types of light sources, led to a systematic classification of optical correlation phenomena and the complete statistical description of optical fields. The area of optics concerned with such questions is now generally known as optical coherence theory . The first investigations of coherence phenomena are due to Verdet (1865, 1869) and von Laue (1907a, b). Some early investigations of Stokes (1852) and Michelson (1890, 1891a, b, c, 1892, 1920) although not explicitly mentioning coherence – because this concept is of a much later origin – have also contributed to the clarification and development of this subject.

Terry van Dijk