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Journal of Modern Optics

Four-photon Coherent States

Edwin E. Hach, Christopher C. Gerry

Published Dec 1, 1992• 24 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a detailed discussion of a type of four-photon coherent state defined as right eigenstates of the operator â 4 where â is the usual annihilation operator. There are actually four sets of states that need to be considered, namely those containing as the lowest number states ¦0>, ¦1>, ¦2>, or ¦3>. These correspond to the possible unique superpositions of the ordinary coherent states ¦±α> and ¦±iα>. We discuss the nonclassical properties of these states such as photon antibunching and squeezing. The usual second order squeezing does not exist for these states but higher order squeezing and square field amplitude squeezing do exist. Also discussed are the quasiprobability distributions, namely the P-function, the Q-function and the Wigner function. Finally, a method of generating these states based on the competition between a four-photon parametric process and incoherent losses from four-photon absorption is presented.

DOI
10.1080/09500349214552521

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We present a detailed discussion of a type of four-photon coherent state defined as right eigenstates of the operator â 4 where â is the usual annihilation operator. There are actually four sets of states that need to be considered, namely those containing as the lowest number states ¦0>, ¦1>, ¦2>, or ¦3>. These correspond to the possible unique superpositions of the ordinary coherent states ¦±α> and ¦±iα>. We discuss the nonclassical properties of these states such as photon antibunching and squeezing. The usual second order squeezing does not exist for these states but higher order squeezing and square field amplitude squeezing do exist. Also discussed are the quasiprobability distributions, namely the P-function, the Q-function and the Wigner function. Finally, a method of generating these states based on the competition between a four-photon parametric process and incoherent losses from four-photon absorption is presented.
We have introduced the notion of ‘four-photon nonlinear coherent states’ (FPNCSs) as right eigenstates of the fourth power of the generalized annihilation operator A4. It has been shown that there are four possible sets of such states which all can be expressed as the deformed Schrödinger cat type states derived from the superposition of four nonlinear coherent states (NCSs) which are π/2 out of phase. The nonclassical properties of the FPNCSs would be studied for two well-known quantum systems, a Kerr-like medium and a trapped laser-driven ion far from the Lamb-Dicke regime. We have found that the depth or the domain of the nonclassical features of FPNCSs in terms of sub-Poissonian photon statistics, higher order squeezing as well as amplitude-squared squeezing are higher than the corresponding standard states. Specifically, the proposed states in this paper exhibit sub-Poissonian statistics over an extensive range of real amplitudes which is in contrast with the lower level of sub-Poissonian characteristics of four-photon standard coherent states. Also the depth or domain of the nonclassical features of the FPNCSs can be modified by changing the magnitude of the nonlinearity parameters. Analysis of the quasi-probability distributions like Glauber–Sudarshan P-function, Husimi Q-function and Wigner distribution function verifies the nonclassical nature of the presented states. Studying the cavity field evolution in the interaction of a single two-level atom with an even NCS in the framework of f-deformed Jaynes-Cummings model shows that such a system can potentially be considered as a possible source for generating the proposed states.
We present a detailed discussion of even and odd coherent states defined as eigenstates of the single mode two-photon annihilation operator a 2. We study the non-classical properties such as squeezing, higher-order squeezing, and photon antibunching. Also discussed are the various quantum quasiprobability distributions, namely the P function, which is shown to be highly singular, the Q function, and the Wigner, which can take on negative values for these states. Finally, we present a discussion of a possible mechanism for the generation of such states based on the competition between parametric amplification and the incoherent losses from two-photon resonant absorption.
In this paper we discuss the nonclassical properties of quantum superpositions of coherent states of light. Using general expressions for the Wigner functions of superposition states we analyze the consequences of quantum interference between coherent states. We describe in detail nonclassical properties of a superposition of two coherent states. In particular, we study the oscillatory behavior of the photon number distribution of the even and odd coherent states. We show under which conditions a superposition of two coherent states can exhibit second- and fourth-order squeezing or sub-Poissonian photon statistics. We examine the sensitivity of nonclassical effects such as oscillations in the photon number distribution or second-order squeezing to dissipation. We demonstrate that quantities such as the photon number distribution and interferences in phase space are highly sensitive to even a quite small dissipative coupling, because they depend on all moments of the field observables, and higher moments decay more rapidly than lower moments. Quantities such as quadrature squeezing, on the other hand, are more robust against dissipation because they involve only lower moments. Finally, we find a remarkable effect whereby fourth-order squeezing is generated by damping.
A method for construction of the k orthonormalized quantum eigenstates of the higher powers ak{\mathit{a}}^{\mathit{k}}ak of the quantum-annihilation operator a is proposed, and their physical meaning is explored. Nonclassical properties of these quantum eigenstates are studied and the main results are as follows: (1) All of the eigenstates can be expressed as a linear superposition of k quantum-coherent states; (2) all of them are generalized quantum-coherent states; (3) for k\ensuremath{\ge}3, they have the Nth-order quantum squeezing for N=mk+k/2 (m=0,1,2, . . .) and even k, but no Nth-order quantum squeezing for other values of N and k; (4) for k\ensuremath{\ge}3, all of them exhibit the lowest- and higher-order quantum antibunching.
We examine the generalized squeezed states defined as eigenstates of a linear combination of the lowering and raising operators a2{\mathrm{a}}^{2}a2 and (${\mathrm{a}}^{\mathrm{\ifmmode\dagger\else\textdagger\fi{}}}$)2{)}^{2})2, respectively. This approach is entirely equivalent to the minimum-uncertainty method applied to the amplitude-squared operators. We solve the eigenvalue equation in Glauber's coherent-state representation and find two independent solutions. Their Fock-state expansions, one containing only even and the other only odd number states, reveal a strong nonclassical character. We show that the calculation of the mean photon number is sufficient to obtain the expectation values of interest. Consequently, photon statistics is investigated in both cases by using the generating function of the photon-number distribution. We find the conditions under which the second-order squeezed states display photon antibunching and quadrature squeezing. Also discussed is the preservation of their amplitude-squared squeezing by linear amplification at gains exceeding 2. Analytically, our results are simple formulas in terms of Kummer and Gauss hypergeometric functions that allow straightforward numerical calculations.