Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Role of primary excitation statistics in the generation of antibunched and sub-Poisson light

Malvin Carl Teich, Bahaa E. A. Saleh, Jan Peřina

Published Jun 1, 1984• 45 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We examine the coherence properties of stationary light obtained by the superposition of nonstationary independent emissions occurring at random space–time points. The positions of the points are independent and uniformly distributed over the volume of the source. The emission times fluctuate in accordance with a stationary renewal point process. This process admits of super-Poisson, sub-Poisson, or Poisson behavior. The individual emissions are assumed to be in a coherent, chaotic, or n state. The statistical nature of the random-emission space–time points plays an important role in determining the coherence properties and photon statistics of the total field. This is manifested in the normalized second-order correlation function, which turns out to have the usual form for chaotic light with two additional terms. The first of these is determined by the statistical nature of the individual emissions (it is positive for coherent or chaotic, but zero for single-photon, emissions). The second term is governed by the statistics of the primary excitations (it is positive for super-Poisson, zero for Poisson, and negative for sub-Poisson excitations). Both additional terms become small for light with a high degeneracy parameter (many total photons per emission lifetime). The behavior of the light is then asymptotically chaotic. In the opposite limit, when the degeneracy parameter is small (or the emissions are instantaneous), the correlation properties of the primary excitations are directly transferred to the correlation properties of the photons. The first-order spatial-coherence properties of the field turn out to be identical with those of chaotic light (i.e., the van Cittert–Zernike theorem is obeyed), although the second-order properties differ. The photon-counting distribution reflects the character of the correlation function. Thus sub-Poisson primary excitations, together with n-state emissions, can lead to sub-Poisson photon counts under certain conditions. Such nonclassical light may be made arbitrarily intense if interference effects are eliminated by detecting many spatial modes. As an example of our theory, we cite a Franck–Hertz experiment excited by a space-charge-limited electron beam. If the electron excitations are represented as a sub-Poisson renewal point process, and the photon emissions as one-photon states, the light generated should be antibunched and sub-Poisson.

DOI
10.1364/josab.1.000366

Related papers

Coherence and photon statistics for optical fields generated by Poisson random emissions

Bahaa E. A. Saleh, David Stoler, Malvin Carl Teich

We examine the coherence properties and photon statistics of stationary light obtained by the superposition of nonstationary emissions occurring at random times, in accordance with a homogeneous Poisson point process. The individual emissions are assumed to be in a coherent, chaotic, or $n$ state. The statistical nature of the emission times results in fluctuations of the relative contributions of different emissions at a given time. This is manifested by an additional positive term, exhibiting particlelike properties, in the normalized second-order correlation function. Thus, the photon-counting variance is increased. For coherent emissions, interference between the randomly delayed emissions produces additional wavelike noise. In the limit when the emissions overlap strongly, the field exhibits the correlation properties of chaotic light, regardless of the statistics of the individual emissions. In the opposite limit, when emissions seldom overlap, the light intensity is describable by a shot-noise stochastic process, and the detected photocounts show an enhanced particlelike noise, which has its largest value when the counting time is long. In that limit, the photocounts obey the Neyman type-$A$ and generalized Polya-Aeppli distributions, when the individual emissions are coherent and chaotic, respectively. When the individual emissions correspond to the $n$ state, the Poisson emission times result in bunching which reduces or eliminates the inherent antibunching associated with the $n$ state.

Physical Review A•Jan 1, 1983•36 citations

Nonstationary elementary-field light randomly triggered by Poisson impulses

Carlos R. Fernández‐Pousa

A stochastic theory of nonstationary light describing the random emission of elementary pulses is presented. The emission is governed by a nonhomogeneous Poisson point process determined by a time-varying emission rate. The model describes, in the appropriate limits, stationary, cyclostationary, locally stationary, and pulsed radiation, and reduces to a Gaussian theory in the limit of dense emission rate. The first- and second-order coherence theories are solved after the computation of second- and fourth-order correlation functions by use of the characteristic function. The ergodicity of second-order correlations under various types of detectors is explored and a number of observables, including optical spectrum, amplitude, and intensity correlations, are analyzed.

Journal of the Optical Society of America A•Apr 18, 2013•5 citations

The spatial behavior of nonclassical light

Mikhail I. Kolobov

Nonclassical effects such as squeezing, antibunching, and sub-Poissonian statistics of photons have been attracting attention in quantum optics over the last decade. Up to now most theoretical and experimental investigations have been carried out exclusively in the time domain while neglecting the spatial aspects by considering only one spatial mode of the electromagnetic field. In many situations such an approximation is well justified. There are, however, problems that do not allow in principle a single-mode consideration. This is the case when one wants to investigate the quantum fluctuations of light at different spatial points in the plane perpendicular to the direction of propagation of the light beam. Such an investigation requires a complete description of quantum fluctuations of light in both time and space and cannot be done within a single-mode theory. This space-time description brings about a natural generalization into the spatial domain of such notions as the standard quantum limit, squeezing, antibunching, etc. It predicts, for example, the possibility of generating a light beam with sub-Poissonian statistics of photons not only in time but also in the beam's transverse plane. Of particular relevance to the applications is a situation in which the cross section of the light beam contains several nonoverlapping areas with sub-Poissonian statistics of photons in each. Photodetection of such a beam produces several sub-shot-noise photocurrents depending on the number of independent areas with sub-Poissonian statistics. This is in marked contrast to the case of a single-mode sub-Poissonian light beam in which any attempt to collect light from only a part of the beam deteriorates the degree of shot-noise reduction. This property of multimode squeezed light opens a range of interesting new applications in optical imaging, optical parallel processing of information, parallel computing, and many other areas in which it is desirable to have a light beam with regular photon statistics across its transverse area. The aim of this review is to describe the recent development in this branch of quantum optics.

Reviews of Modern Physics•Oct 1, 1999•359 citations

VARIOUS APPROACHES TO PHOTON ANTIBUNCHING IN SECOND-HARMONIC GENERATION 1

Adam Miranowicz, J. Bajer

We analyze the most popular approaches to photon antibunching as exemplified in a sim-ple model of second-harmonic generation. We find the exact evolution of the fundamental and harmonic fields for initial Fock states with small photon numbers. We show explicitly that definitions of photon antibunching based on the unnormalized, G(2)(t, t′), and normal-ized, g(2)(t, t′), two-time correlation functions describe distinct phenomena for nonstationary fields. For completeness, we also compare antibunching effects defined by the two-time and single-time correlations. 1 Photon antibunching Photon antibunching and sub-Poisson photon statistics (also called antibunching) reveal the quan-tum nature of light and therefore have received a great deal of attention during the last decades. The first detection of antibunched light by Kimble, Dagenais and Mandel [1] and first detection of sub-Poisson light by Short and Mandel [2] are regarded as milestones in the progress in quantum optics. In spite of many experimental and theoretical achievements, a deeper analysis of these effects seems to be necessary, particularly in the case of nonstationary fields. We shall clarify some of these aspects by referring to an example of second-harmonic generation. There are several commonly used definitions of photon antibunching for a single-mode radiation field (e.g., Refs. [1]–[9]): Definition I: The photon antibunching (see, e.g., Ref. [3]) occurs if the two-time light intensity correlation function G(2)(t, t+ τ) increases from its initial value at τ = 0,

•Jan 1, 1998•1 citation

New phenomena in quantum optics: photon antibunching, sub-Poisson photon statistics, and squeezed states

D F Smirnov, A. S. Troshin

The concepts listed in the title are introduced and clarified. The relations among them are pointed out. It is shown that the corresponding optical phenomena are definitely of a quantum nature. The basic quantities which are measured in correlation optical experiments are discussed. Manifestations of photon antibunching and of sub-Poisson photon statistics in the recording of delayed coincidences, in the distribution of photon counts, and in intensity fluctuation spectra are analyzed. (More precisely, what is involved is the spectrum of fluctuations in the photocurrent; all the results of the theoretical analysis in this review are expressed in terms of directly measurable quantities.) A diagram technique for calculating the correlation characteristics of the radiation from a polyatomic system is outlined. Photon correlations in nonlinear resonance fluorescence are analyzed. There is a discussion of approaches to the development of macroscopic sources of radiation with sub-Poisson photon statistics: the production of a squeezed state of a field in phase-sensitive parametric effects in nonlinear optics and the introduction of repulsive statistics in luminescence excitation events and in the pumping of a laser. Experiments in these directions which had been reported through April 1986 are discussed. The practical importance of reducing the quantum noise in radiation for extremely precise measurements and for optical data transmission is pointed out.

Soviet Physics Uspekhi•Oct 31, 1987•55 citations

Photon statistics of amplified spontaneous emission

Iliya V. Doronin, Evgenii S. Andrianov, A. A. Zyablovsky +4 more

Developments in quantum technologies lead to new applications that require radiation sources with specific photon statistics. A widely used Poissonian statistics are easily produced by lasers; however, some applications require super- or sub-Poissonian statistics. Statistical properties of a light source are characterized by the second-order coherence function g^(2)(0). This function distinguishes stimulated radiation of lasers with g^(2)(0)=1 from light of other sources. For example, g^(2)(0)=2 for black-body radiation, and g^(2)(0)=0 for single-photon emission. One of the applications requiring super-Poissonian statistics (g^(2)(0)>1) is ghost imaging with thermal light. Ghost imaging also requires light with a narrow linewidth and high intensity. Currently, rather expensive and inefficient light sources are used for this purpose. In the last year, a superluminescent diode based on amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) has been considered as a new light source for ghost imaging. Even though ASE has been widely studied, its photon statistics has not been settled - there are neither reliable theoretical estimates of the second-order coherence function nor unambiguous experimental data. Our computer simulation clearly establishes that coherence properties of light produced by ASE are similar to that of a thermal source with g^(2)(0)=2 independent of pump power. This result manifests the fundamental difference between ASE and laser radiation.

arXiv:1806.07458•Jun 19, 2018•0 citations
We examine the coherence properties of stationary light obtained by the superposition of nonstationary independent emissions occurring at random space–time points. The positions of the points are independent and uniformly distributed over the volume of the source. The emission times fluctuate in accordance with a stationary renewal point process. This process admits of super-Poisson, sub-Poisson, or Poisson behavior. The individual emissions are assumed to be in a coherent, chaotic, or n state. The statistical nature of the random-emission space–time points plays an important role in determining the coherence properties and photon statistics of the total field. This is manifested in the normalized second-order correlation function, which turns out to have the usual form for chaotic light with two additional terms. The first of these is determined by the statistical nature of the individual emissions (it is positive for coherent or chaotic, but zero for single-photon, emissions). The second term is governed by the statistics of the primary excitations (it is positive for super-Poisson, zero for Poisson, and negative for sub-Poisson excitations). Both additional terms become small for light with a high degeneracy parameter (many total photons per emission lifetime). The behavior of the light is then asymptotically chaotic. In the opposite limit, when the degeneracy parameter is small (or the emissions are instantaneous), the correlation properties of the primary excitations are directly transferred to the correlation properties of the photons. The first-order spatial-coherence properties of the field turn out to be identical with those of chaotic light (i.e., the van Cittert–Zernike theorem is obeyed), although the second-order properties differ. The photon-counting distribution reflects the character of the correlation function. Thus sub-Poisson primary excitations, together with n-state emissions, can lead to sub-Poisson photon counts under certain conditions. Such nonclassical light may be made arbitrarily intense if interference effects are eliminated by detecting many spatial modes. As an example of our theory, we cite a Franck–Hertz experiment excited by a space-charge-limited electron beam. If the electron excitations are represented as a sub-Poisson renewal point process, and the photon emissions as one-photon states, the light generated should be antibunched and sub-Poisson.
We examine the coherence properties and photon statistics of stationary light obtained by the superposition of nonstationary emissions occurring at random times, in accordance with a homogeneous Poisson point process. The individual emissions are assumed to be in a coherent, chaotic, or nnn state. The statistical nature of the emission times results in fluctuations of the relative contributions of different emissions at a given time. This is manifested by an additional positive term, exhibiting particlelike properties, in the normalized second-order correlation function. Thus, the photon-counting variance is increased. For coherent emissions, interference between the randomly delayed emissions produces additional wavelike noise. In the limit when the emissions overlap strongly, the field exhibits the correlation properties of chaotic light, regardless of the statistics of the individual emissions. In the opposite limit, when emissions seldom overlap, the light intensity is describable by a shot-noise stochastic process, and the detected photocounts show an enhanced particlelike noise, which has its largest value when the counting time is long. In that limit, the photocounts obey the Neyman type-AAA and generalized Polya-Aeppli distributions, when the individual emissions are coherent and chaotic, respectively. When the individual emissions correspond to the nnn state, the Poisson emission times result in bunching which reduces or eliminates the inherent antibunching associated with the nnn state.
A stochastic theory of nonstationary light describing the random emission of elementary pulses is presented. The emission is governed by a nonhomogeneous Poisson point process determined by a time-varying emission rate. The model describes, in the appropriate limits, stationary, cyclostationary, locally stationary, and pulsed radiation, and reduces to a Gaussian theory in the limit of dense emission rate. The first- and second-order coherence theories are solved after the computation of second- and fourth-order correlation functions by use of the characteristic function. The ergodicity of second-order correlations under various types of detectors is explored and a number of observables, including optical spectrum, amplitude, and intensity correlations, are analyzed.
Nonclassical effects such as squeezing, antibunching, and sub-Poissonian statistics of photons have been attracting attention in quantum optics over the last decade. Up to now most theoretical and experimental investigations have been carried out exclusively in the time domain while neglecting the spatial aspects by considering only one spatial mode of the electromagnetic field. In many situations such an approximation is well justified. There are, however, problems that do not allow in principle a single-mode consideration. This is the case when one wants to investigate the quantum fluctuations of light at different spatial points in the plane perpendicular to the direction of propagation of the light beam. Such an investigation requires a complete description of quantum fluctuations of light in both time and space and cannot be done within a single-mode theory. This space-time description brings about a natural generalization into the spatial domain of such notions as the standard quantum limit, squeezing, antibunching, etc. It predicts, for example, the possibility of generating a light beam with sub-Poissonian statistics of photons not only in time but also in the beam's transverse plane. Of particular relevance to the applications is a situation in which the cross section of the light beam contains several nonoverlapping areas with sub-Poissonian statistics of photons in each. Photodetection of such a beam produces several sub-shot-noise photocurrents depending on the number of independent areas with sub-Poissonian statistics. This is in marked contrast to the case of a single-mode sub-Poissonian light beam in which any attempt to collect light from only a part of the beam deteriorates the degree of shot-noise reduction. This property of multimode squeezed light opens a range of interesting new applications in optical imaging, optical parallel processing of information, parallel computing, and many other areas in which it is desirable to have a light beam with regular photon statistics across its transverse area. The aim of this review is to describe the recent development in this branch of quantum optics.
We analyze the most popular approaches to photon antibunching as exemplified in a sim-ple model of second-harmonic generation. We find the exact evolution of the fundamental and harmonic fields for initial Fock states with small photon numbers. We show explicitly that definitions of photon antibunching based on the unnormalized, G(2)(t, t′), and normal-ized, g(2)(t, t′), two-time correlation functions describe distinct phenomena for nonstationary fields. For completeness, we also compare antibunching effects defined by the two-time and single-time correlations. 1 Photon antibunching Photon antibunching and sub-Poisson photon statistics (also called antibunching) reveal the quan-tum nature of light and therefore have received a great deal of attention during the last decades. The first detection of antibunched light by Kimble, Dagenais and Mandel [1] and first detection of sub-Poisson light by Short and Mandel [2] are regarded as milestones in the progress in quantum optics. In spite of many experimental and theoretical achievements, a deeper analysis of these effects seems to be necessary, particularly in the case of nonstationary fields. We shall clarify some of these aspects by referring to an example of second-harmonic generation. There are several commonly used definitions of photon antibunching for a single-mode radiation field (e.g., Refs. [1]–[9]): Definition I: The photon antibunching (see, e.g., Ref. [3]) occurs if the two-time light intensity correlation function G(2)(t, t+ τ) increases from its initial value at τ = 0,
The concepts listed in the title are introduced and clarified. The relations among them are pointed out. It is shown that the corresponding optical phenomena are definitely of a quantum nature. The basic quantities which are measured in correlation optical experiments are discussed. Manifestations of photon antibunching and of sub-Poisson photon statistics in the recording of delayed coincidences, in the distribution of photon counts, and in intensity fluctuation spectra are analyzed. (More precisely, what is involved is the spectrum of fluctuations in the photocurrent; all the results of the theoretical analysis in this review are expressed in terms of directly measurable quantities.) A diagram technique for calculating the correlation characteristics of the radiation from a polyatomic system is outlined. Photon correlations in nonlinear resonance fluorescence are analyzed. There is a discussion of approaches to the development of macroscopic sources of radiation with sub-Poisson photon statistics: the production of a squeezed state of a field in phase-sensitive parametric effects in nonlinear optics and the introduction of repulsive statistics in luminescence excitation events and in the pumping of a laser. Experiments in these directions which had been reported through April 1986 are discussed. The practical importance of reducing the quantum noise in radiation for extremely precise measurements and for optical data transmission is pointed out.
Developments in quantum technologies lead to new applications that require radiation sources with specific photon statistics. A widely used Poissonian statistics are easily produced by lasers; however, some applications require super- or sub-Poissonian statistics. Statistical properties of a light source are characterized by the second-order coherence function g^(2)(0). This function distinguishes stimulated radiation of lasers with g^(2)(0)=1 from light of other sources. For example, g^(2)(0)=2 for black-body radiation, and g^(2)(0)=0 for single-photon emission. One of the applications requiring super-Poissonian statistics (g^(2)(0)>1) is ghost imaging with thermal light. Ghost imaging also requires light with a narrow linewidth and high intensity. Currently, rather expensive and inefficient light sources are used for this purpose. In the last year, a superluminescent diode based on amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) has been considered as a new light source for ghost imaging. Even though ASE has been widely studied, its photon statistics has not been settled - there are neither reliable theoretical estimates of the second-order coherence function nor unambiguous experimental data. Our computer simulation clearly establishes that coherence properties of light produced by ASE are similar to that of a thermal source with g^(2)(0)=2 independent of pump power. This result manifests the fundamental difference between ASE and laser radiation.