Scope and aims of this book Quantum optics is one of the liveliest fields in physics at present. While it has been a dominant research field for at least two decades, with much graduate activity, in the past few years it has started to impact the undergraduate curriculum. This book developed from courses we have taught to final year undergraduates and beginning graduate students at Imperial College London and City University of New York. There are plenty of good research monographs in this field, but we felt that there was a genuine need for a straightforward account for senior undergraduates and beginning postgraduates, which stresses basic concepts. This is a field which attracts the brightest students at present, in part because of the extraordinary progress in the field (e.g. the implementation of teleportation, quantum cryptography, Schrödinger cat states, Bell violations of local realism and the like). We hope that this book provides an accessible introduction to this exciting subject. Our aim was to write an elementary book on the essentials of quantum optics directed to an audience of upper-level undergraduates, assumed to have suffered through a course in quantum mechanics, and for first-or second-year graduate students interested in eventually pursuing research in this area. The material we introduce is not simple, and will be a challenge for undergraduates and beginning graduate students, but we have tried to use the most straightforward approaches. Nevertheless, there are parts of the text that the reader will find more challenging than others.
Scope and aims of this book Quantum optics is one of the liveliest fields in physics at present. While it has been a dominant research field for at least two decades, with much graduate activity, in the past few years it has started to impact the undergraduate curriculum. This book developed from courses we have taught to final year undergraduates and beginning graduate students at Imperial College London and City University of New York. There are plenty of good research monographs in this field, but we felt that there was a genuine need for a straightforward account for senior undergraduates and beginning postgraduates, which stresses basic concepts. This is a field which attracts the brightest students at present, in part because of the extraordinary progress in the field (e.g. the implementation of teleportation, quantum cryptography, Schrödinger cat states, Bell violations of local realism and the like). We hope that this book provides an accessible introduction to this exciting subject. Our aim was to write an elementary book on the essentials of quantum optics directed to an audience of upper-level undergraduates, assumed to have suffered through a course in quantum mechanics, and for first-or second-year graduate students interested in eventually pursuing research in this area. The material we introduce is not simple, and will be a challenge for undergraduates and beginning graduate students, but we have tried to use the most straightforward approaches. Nevertheless, there are parts of the text that the reader will find more challenging than others.
This book provides a solid pedagogical background in the techniques used in quantum optics, with an emphasis on open quantum systems. Suitable for undergraduates as a second semester quantum mechanics course or first year graduate students, this book begins with a short summary of quantum mechanics and contains physics of open systems and their application to light/matter interactions. Written in a simplified manner and classroom tested, this book provides the fundamentals of quantum optics and includes recent developments in the field. Part of IOP Series in Emerging Technologies in Optics and Photonics.
This book provides an elementary introduction to the subject of quantum optics, the study of the quantum mechanical nature of light and its interaction with matter. The presentation is almost entirely concerned with the quantized electromagnetic field. Topics covered include single-mode field quantization in a cavity, quantization of multimode fields, quantum phase, coherent states, quasi-probability distribution in phase space, atom-field interactions, the Jaynes-Cummings model, quantum coherence theory, beam splitters and interferometers, dissipative interactions, nonclassical field states with squeezing etc., 'Schrödinger cat' states, tests of local realism with entangled photons from down-conversion, experimental realizations of cavity quantum electrodynamics, trapped ions, decoherence, and some applications to quantum information processing, particularly quantum cryptography. The book contains many homework problems and an extensive bibliography. This text is designed for upper-level undergraduates taking courses in quantum optics who have already taken a course in quantum mechanics, and for first and second year graduate students.
Why yet another book on quantum information theory? Like many lecturers we began writing this text because none of the alternatives seemed quite right. This book is aimed squarely at undergraduate physics students who want a brief but reasonably thorough introduction to the exciting ideas of quantum information, including its applications in computation and communication. It is based on a short course we have taught to fourth-year students at Oxford University since 2004; for the most part it only assumes knowledge of elementary quantum mechanics and linear algebra, and so could even be taught to third-year undergraduates. A brief revision guide to quantum mechanics is provided as an appendix, which should cover any minor points that have been missed. As the title implies the book is structured in three parts, starting with the basics of quantum information and then applying this to quantum computation and quantum communication. Part I is self-contained, but contains only the barest hints of the exciting applications which attract many people to this field and so might prove unsatisfying on its own. Parts II and III draw heavily on Part I, but are largely independent of each other, and it would be perfectly possible to study only one of these two without the other. As this text is aimed at physics undergraduates, we believe that it is vital to cover experimental techniques, rather than merely presenting quantum information as a series of abstract quantum operations. We have, however, concentrated on the basic ideas underlying each approach, rather than worrying about particular experimental details.
The field of quantum optics has witnessed significant theoretical and experimental developments in recent years. This book provides an in-depth and wide-ranging introduction to the subject, emphasising throughout the basic principles and their applications. The book begins by developing the basic tools of quantum optics, and goes on to show the application of these tools in a variety of quantum optical systems, including lasing without inversion, squeezed states and atom optics. The final four chapters are devoted to a discussion of quantum optical tests of the foundations of quantum mechanics, and to particular aspects of measurement theory. Assuming only a background of standard quantum mechanics and electromagnetic theory, and containing many problems and references, this book will be invaluable to graduate students of quantum optics, as well as to researchers in this field.
Abstract This book provides the reader with a contemporary and comprehensive introduction to Quantum Mechanics. It is suitable for beginners as well as for more advanced university students. Quantum mechanics is presented in a pedagogical fashion, with a clear logical organization. The various concepts and methods are introduced first in elementary terms, and later developed into more precise formulations. Systematic studies of approximation methods and the discussion of a wide class of physical applications follow. Part I of the book, together with the opening sections of Part II, provide adequate material for an introductory course of one semester at most universities. The rest of the book might be used in an advanced course on Quantum Mechanics. The basic material is fairly standard, even though some discussions such as those on general systems with time-dependent Hamiltonians, on metastable systems, as well as the discussions in some of the Complement sections, may not be found in other textbooks. The book also contains many original observations or new ways of illustrating even well-known subjects. In fact, the authors wish to convey in this book the sense of wonder in the logical simplicity and at the same time the beauty of subtle and far-reaching consequences of Quantum Mechanics, to young physics students in particular. Problem sets are provided at the end of each chapter, to be solved either analytically or by numerical methods. The solutions to both types of problems are given as separate pdf files or as Mathematica notebooks (there are 88 of them), all together on a CD accompanying the textbook. The presence of such a collection of numerical analyses enriches the main text and is one of the characteristic features of the book. With the many interesting systems discussed, the book will also be a useful reference for researchers and teachers. It provides the reader with a unique, enjoyable and rather complete textbook of Quantum Mechanics, destined to set a new standard for many years to come.
The rapid development of quantum technologies has driven a revolution in related research areas such as quantum computation and communication, and quantum materials. The first prototypes of functional quantum devices are beginning to appear, frequently created using ensembles of atoms, which allow the observation of sensitive, quantum effects, and have important applications in quantum simulation and matter wave interferometry. This modern text offers a self-contained introduction to the fundamentals of quantum atom optics and atomic many-body matter wave systems. Assuming a familiarity with undergraduate quantum mechanics, this book will be accessible for graduate students and early career researchers moving into this important new field. A detailed description of the underlying theory of quantum atom optics is given, before development of the key, quantum, technological applications, such as atom interferometry, quantum simulation, quantum metrology, and quantum computing.