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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Phase operators for the electromagnetic field by squeezed-state theory

Robert Lynch

Published Jul 1, 1986• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A new set of phase operators for the electromagnetic field has been defined by an extension of squeezed-state theory. In several cases these operators have similar or the same properties as the previously defined (Susskind–Glogower) operators. However, the new operators also have unique properties of their own. The expectation values of the phase operators have been found for a squeezed state and been shown to reduce to the expected classical values in the limit of small amounts of squeezing and large field excitation.

DOI
10.1364/josab.3.001006

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arXiv:1809.03844•Physical Review A•Feb 1, 1993•3 citations
A new set of phase operators for the electromagnetic field has been defined by an extension of squeezed-state theory. In several cases these operators have similar or the same properties as the previously defined (Susskind–Glogower) operators. However, the new operators also have unique properties of their own. The expectation values of the phase operators have been found for a squeezed state and been shown to reduce to the expected classical values in the limit of small amounts of squeezing and large field excitation.
The phase properties of the squeezed number states have been studied from the lower order to the higher order via the measured phase operators (MPO) introduced by Barnett and Pegg and compared with those obtained via the Hermitian and Susskind-Glogower phase operators. We have found many new, interesting results. For the lower order, the phase fluctuations of the MPO are exactly independent of the photon number n. For the higher order, the corresponding fluctuations are a decreasing function of n.
The usual mathematical model of the single-mode electromagnetic field is the harmonic oscillator with an infinite-dimensional state space, which unfortunately cannot accommodate the existence of a Hermitian phase operator. Recently we indicated that this difficulty may be circumvented by using an alternative, and physically indistinguishable, mathematical model of the single-mode field involving a finite but arbitrarily large state space, the dimension of which is allowed to tend to infinity after physically measurable results, such as expectation values, are calculated. In this paper we investigate the properties of a Hermitian phase operator which follows directly and uniquely from the form of the phase states in this space and find them to be well behaved. The phase-number commutator is not subject to the difficulties inherent in Dirac's original commutator, but still preserves the commutator--Poisson-bracket correspondence for physical field states. In the quantum regime of small field strengths, the phase operator predicts phase properties substantially different from those obtained using the conventional Susskind-Glogower operators. In particular, our results are consistent with the vacuum being a state of random phase and the phases of two vacuum fields being uncorrelated. For higher-intensity fields, the quantum phase properties agree with those previously obtained by phenomenological and semiclassical approaches, where such approximations are valid. We illustrate the properties of the phase with a discussion of partial phase states. The Hermitian phase operator also allows us to construct a unitary number-shift operator and phase-moment generating functions. We conclude that the alternative mathematical description of the single-mode field presented here provides a valid, and potentially useful, quantum-mechanical approach for calculating the phase properties of the electromagnetic field.