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Physical Review A

Simulating the Wigner angle with a parametric amplifier

P. K. Aravind

Published Oct 1, 1990• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This paper presents a scheme for simulating and observing the Wigner angle using an optical parametric amplifier. The scheme is based on the observation that the dynamical symmetry group of the amplifier, which is SU(1,1), is locally isomorphic to the group SO(2,1) of Lorentz transformations in two space and one time dimension(s). It is shown how boosts and rotations in relativity can be realized as suitable operations on the amplifier, and a quantum-optical analog of the Wigner angle is identified. Using recently developed techniques for the generation and detection of squeezed states, a scheme is proposed for observing the optical analog of the Wigner angle. The feasibility of the scheme is evaluated, and its significance is discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.42.4077

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This paper presents a scheme for simulating and observing the Wigner angle using an optical parametric amplifier. The scheme is based on the observation that the dynamical symmetry group of the amplifier, which is SU(1,1), is locally isomorphic to the group SO(2,1) of Lorentz transformations in two space and one time dimension(s). It is shown how boosts and rotations in relativity can be realized as suitable operations on the amplifier, and a quantum-optical analog of the Wigner angle is identified. Using recently developed techniques for the generation and detection of squeezed states, a scheme is proposed for observing the optical analog of the Wigner angle. The feasibility of the scheme is evaluated, and its significance is discussed.
It is shown that classical linear canonical transformations are possible in the Wigner phase space. Coherent and squeezed states are shown to be linear canonical transforms of the ground-state harmonic oscillator. It is therefore possible to evaluate the Wigner functions for coherent and squeezed states from that for the harmonic oscillator. Since the group of linear canonical transformations has a subgroup whose algebraic property is the same as that of the (2+1)-dimensional Lorentz group, it may be possible to test certain properties of the Lorentz group using optical devices. A possible experiment to measure the Wigner rotation angle is discussed.
The special relativity is the foundation for many branches of modern physics, of which the theoretical results are far beyond our daily experience and hard to realized in kinematic experiments. However, its outcomes could be demonstrated by making use of the convenient substitute, i.e., the squeezed light in the present paper. The squeezed light is very important in the field of quantum optics, and the corresponding transformation can be regarded as the coherent state of SU(1,1). In this paper, the connection between the squeezed operator and the Lorentz boost is built under certain conditions. Furthermore, the additional law of relativistic velocities and the angle of the Wigner rotation are deduced as well.
Lorentz transformations in time and two space dimensions consist of boosts and rotations, and combinations thereof. In general, the combination of two boosts is not another boost: It is a boost followed by a rotation. The rotation angle is called the Wigner angle. Although it is straightforward to determine the energy and direction of the combined boost, it is difficult to determine the Wigner angle. In this article, the vector, matrix and spinor derivations of formulas for the Wigner angle are reviewed, and the underlying mathematics and physics are discussed briefly. Although the derivations are different, the results they produce are equivalent, as they should be. Like many physics problems, if one looks at the problem in the right way, it is not difficult to solve.
It is shown that the basic symmetry of two-mode squeezed states is governed by the group Sp(4) in the Wigner phase space which is locally isomorphic to the (3+2)-dimensional Lorentz group. This symmetry, in the Schr\"odinger picture, appears as Dirac's two-oscillator representation of O(3,2). It is shown that the SU(2) and SU(1,1) interferometers exhibit the symmetry of this higher-dimensional Lorentz group. The mathematics of two-mode squeezed states is shown to be applicable to other branches of physics including thermally excited states in statistical mechanics and relativistic extended hadrons in the quark model.
This paper starts with the transition from classical physics to quantum mechanics which was greatly aided by the concept of phase space. The role of canonical transformations in quantum mechanics is addressed. The Wigner phase-space distribution function is then defined which arises from the formulation of the density matrix, followed by the harmonic oscillator in phase space. Coherent and one- and two-mode squeezed states of light as well as the squeezed vacuum are discussed in the phase-space picture. Attention is also drawn to the fact that squeezed states naturally generate entanglement between the two-modes. Coupled harmonic oscillators are also elucidated in connection with the Wigner phase space. It will be noted that the phase-space picture of quantum mechanics has become an important scientific language for the rapidly expanding field of quantum optics. Here, we mainly focus on the simplest form of the Wigner function, which finds application in many branches of quantum mechanics. We make use of several symmetry groups such as Lorentz groups, the symplectic group in two and four dimensions, and the Euclidean group. The decoherence problem of an optical field is examined through a reformulation of the Poincaré sphere as a further illustration of the density matrix.
The Wigner phase-space formulation for systems possessing SU(1,1) symmetry has been defined by Seyfarth et al. [Quantum 4, 317 (2020)] tackling the difficulty in defining a suitable operational definition of the Wigner function. To further investigate this formulation, we propose a non-linear optical setup that incorporates photon-number-resolving detectors, which would enable a direct and comprehensive point-by-point sampling of the SU(1,1) Wigner function. We discuss the visualization of various two-mode quantum states and the effect of the losses in such a detection scheme.