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Physical Review A

Continuous state reduction of correlated photon fields in photodetection processes

Masahito Ueda, Nobuyuki Imoto, Tetsuo Ogawa

Published Jun 1, 1990• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A general theory is developed that describes continuous state reduction of two quantum-mechanically correlated photon fields by continuous photodetection of one of the fields. The effects of measurement back action and quantum correlation on the state reduction of the other field are highlighted from the viewpoint of continuous photodetection. Nonunitary time evolutions of the density operators and photon statistics are exactly described for both fields. The obtained formulas are applied to parametrically generated photon twins, i.e., signal and idler fields. The continuous state reduction of the signal field by photodetection of the idler field is examined. It is shown that the Manley-Rowe relation can be generalized to the intermediate state under the photodetection process; that is, the initial quantum correlation remains intact throughout the ``destructive'' photodetection process if we retain the information about the idler readout. The obtained results are compared to the case in which the idler readout is discarded. In this case, the Manley-Rowe relation can no longer hold. This fact demonstrates that retaining the readout information is essential for preserving the established quantum correlation.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.41.6331

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Physical Review A•Apr 1, 1990•65 citations
A general theory is developed that describes continuous state reduction of two quantum-mechanically correlated photon fields by continuous photodetection of one of the fields. The effects of measurement back action and quantum correlation on the state reduction of the other field are highlighted from the viewpoint of continuous photodetection. Nonunitary time evolutions of the density operators and photon statistics are exactly described for both fields. The obtained formulas are applied to parametrically generated photon twins, i.e., signal and idler fields. The continuous state reduction of the signal field by photodetection of the idler field is examined. It is shown that the Manley-Rowe relation can be generalized to the intermediate state under the photodetection process; that is, the initial quantum correlation remains intact throughout the ``destructive'' photodetection process if we retain the information about the idler readout. The obtained results are compared to the case in which the idler readout is discarded. In this case, the Manley-Rowe relation can no longer hold. This fact demonstrates that retaining the readout information is essential for preserving the established quantum correlation.
We develop a quantum theory for continuous photodetection processes that describes nonunitary time development of the field under continuous measurement of photon number. Exact expressions are obtained for time evolutions of the photon-field density operator, average and variance of the photon number, and the Fano factor. These are applied to typical quantum states, i.e., number, coherent, thermal, and squeezed states. The continuous photodetection process is made up of two elementary processes in terms of the referring measurement process, that is, one-count and no-count processes. Just after the one-count process in which a photodetector registers one photoelectron, the average photon number 〈n(t)〉 of the remaining field is shown to increase for super-Poissonian states (e.g., thermal state) and decrease for sub-Poissonian states (e.g., number state); for the Poissonian state (e.g., coherent light), 〈n(t)〉 does not change. During the no-count process in which the photodetector registers no photoelectrons, on the other hand, 〈n(t)〉 decreases in time for all states except the number state. The physical origins for these results are clarified from the viewpoint of nonunitary state reduction by continuous measurement of photon number. Furthermore, we introduce a nonreferring measurement process in which the detector registers photocounts, but we discard all readout information. We discuss the difference in the way the photon field evolves in this process compared to the referring measurement process.
A nonequilibrium open-system theory for continuous photodetection processes is developed using a probability-density functional combined with the path-integral technique. Nonunitary time evolution of the system-environment density operator due to measurement back action and continuous measurement is exactly described for three familiar photodetection processes. New exact photocounting formulas are obtained for these three processes; in particular, Mollow's photocounting formula is generalized for a nonequilibrium open system. Distinctive features between a closed system and an open system are presented; for example, the probability distribution for the number of counts is shown to contain complete information about photoelectron statistics for a closed system, whereas it does not for an open system. The obtained formulas are applied to photodetection of a single-mode photon field that interacts linearly with a pump source consisting of a single harmonic oscillator and a reservoir consisting of an infinite number of harmonic oscillators. In the former case, increasing the ratio of the source-field coupling constant to the field-detector coupling constant causes the photon field to cross over from a closed attenuating field to an open stationary field. In the latter case, a quantum-mechanical fluctuation-dissipation theorem in the continuous photodetection context is discussed.
A continuous photon-number measurement has been assumed in the idler mode output from parametric down-conversion for an initial coherent state. The states generated in the signal mode due to the mode entanglement and the effects of both the destructive and the ideal reduction are described in terms of a quasidistribution of the complex field amplitude as well as of the density-matrix elements. The resulting near-number states in the ideal case are suitable for the study of the dynamics of phase and quadrature distributions rotated by the actual preferred phase. These states exhibit both number and quadrature squeezing. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
This paper presents a general theory for a continuous quantum-nondemolition measurement of photon number. This theory treats a time-distributed measurement as a sequence of measurements in which at most one photon can be detected in an infinitesimal time, and shows that the average number of photons remaining in the measured field increases when a photon is detected and decreases when no photon is detected. The state of the measured system evolves nonunitarily and reduces continuously to a nunber state whose eigenvalue is uniquely determined by the average rate of photodetection and whose probability distribution coincides with the initial photon-number distribution. Applying the general theory to typical quantum states---coherent, thermal, and squeezed states---shows that the continuous-state reduction towards a number state depends strongly on the initial photon statistics. Despite the nonunitarity of state evolution, an initially pure state keeps its purity: the initial density operator becomes diagonalized only if the readout information is discarded.
A concept 'probability-density functional' combined with the path integral technique is shown to provide a new framework for quantum photodetection theory. It replaces the conventional picture of unitary evolution of the total density operator followed by von Neumann's projection postulate for the case in which the effects of nonunitary state reduction and continuous measurements must be taken into account. This paper shows that an expression of the probability-density functional which incorporates both these effects provides complete quantum-statistical information about photoelectron statistics. Simple procedures are given for calculating the ensemble average and generating the functional of a quantity distributed in time.
This paper proposes a microscopic model for the continuous measurement of photon numbers where the continuous measurement is simulated by a sequence of infinitesimal processes. Each process is composed of a unitary evolution for the coupled system, which consists of the field and the measuring apparatus, followed by a projection according to the readout of the measuring apparatus. The proposed model consists of two-level atoms that are coupled one by one with an optical cavity field via the electric-dipole interaction. Each atomic level is then read out after the interaction, causing a nonunitary state reduction of the field. In particular, it is shown that this microscopic model leads to the Srinivas-Davies model that has been postulated for the photodetection process.