On the similarities between the Wigner distribution function in classical and quantum optics

Daniela Dragoman

I. Földesi, József Janszky, Петер Адам +3 more

Siamak Khademi

Wigner distribution function has much importance in quantum statistical mechanics. It finds applications in various disciplines of physics including condense matter, quantum optics, to name but a few. Wigner distribution function is introduced by E. Wigner in 1932. However, there is no analytical derivation of Wigner distribution function in the literatures, to date. In this paper, a simple analytical derivation of Wigner distribution function is presented. Our derivation is based on two assumptions, these are A) by taking the integral of Wigner distribution function, with respect to configuration space, the momentum space distribution function is obtained B) WDF is real. Similarly, and in addition to Wigner distribution function, the distribution function of Sobouti-Nasiri, which is imaginary, is also derived.

Robert F. O’Connell

E. I. Jafarov, Stijn F. Lievens, Joris Van Der Jeugt

In the beginning of the 1950's, Wigner introduced a fundamental deformation from the canonical quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator, which is nowadays sometimes called a Wigner quantum oscillator or a parabose oscillator. Also, in quantum mechanics the so-called Wigner distribution is considered to be the closest quantum analogue of the classical probability distribution over the phase space. In this article, we consider which definition for such distribution function could be used in the case of non-canonical quantum mechanics. We then explicitly compute two different expressions for this distribution function for the case of the parabose oscillator. Both expressions turn out to be multiple sums involving (generalized) Laguerre polynomials. Plots then show that the Wigner distribution function for the ground state of the parabose oscillator is similar in behaviour to the Wigner distribution function of the first excited state of the canonical quantum oscillator.

Román Castañeda, Gustavo Cañas, Herbert Vinck-Posada

In the framework of the spatial coherence wavelets, different features of the first-order spatial coherence (Young's interference) are analysed by calculating the corresponding marginal power spectrum, a close related quantity to the classical Wigner Distribution Function (WDF) of the optical field. The consideration of radiant and virtual point sources evidences some effects, conventionally attributed to non-classical correlations of light, although such type of correlations are not explicitly included in the model. Specifically, a light state is produced that has similar morphology to the WDF of the well-known quantum Schrödinger cat state.