We investigate the average number of photons in the two-photon coherent state by comparison with the ideal squeezed state and find that it relates to the quantum fluctuation of the quadrature and the phase of the initial coherent state. The physical significance of the relations is analyzed in detail.
The phase operator for a two-mode photon system is defined in terms of the relative-number states, and its property is investigated in detail. The phase operator thus defined has a unitary exponential form. It is shown that the average value and fluctuation of the phase operator, where one mode is in some physical state, such as a coherent or a squeezed state, and the other is in a vacuum state, are equivalent to those obtained by means of the Pegg–Barnett phase operator for a single-mode photon. The average value and fluctuation of the phase operator are calculated for coherent and squeezed states of a two-mode photon system.
A squeezed state of light is usually taken to mean a state in which the fluctuations of one of the quadratures are below the level associated with a coherent or vacuum state. These squeezed fluctuations are phase sensitive in the sense that they vary periodically as the field evolves, but the relationship between squeezing and phase fluctuations is not trivial. While squeezed states can exhibit an arbitrarily low level of phase fluctuations, the phase states, which are eigenstates of the Hermitian optical phase operator are not themselves quadrature squeezed. A phasesqueezed state is one with a lower level of phase fluctuations than a coherent state with the same mean photon number. Phase squeezing is fundamentally different from quadrature squeezing in much the same way that sub-Poissonian photon statistics is different. For this reason optimally squeezed states and states with minimum phase noise will be distinct. We derive the form of the states which minimum phase noise for a given intensity. These have an Airy function behavior for the photon number probability distribution. These phase squeezed states have a far better phase resolution than coherent states of similar intensity, but do not seem to offer a significant reduction of phase fluctuations compared with conventional squeezed states.
We investigate the dynamical evolution of nonclassical states of light undergoing a two-photon absorption process. We consider two distinct cases of initial states, a squeezed coherent state and an eigenstate of the two-photon annihilation operator (a superposition of macroscopically distinct coherent states). We analyze the fluctuations in the photon-number operator and in the quadrature components of the field. Whereas one-photon linear damping rapidly destroys quantum features such as squeezing, we demonstrate that substantial coherence is retained when such light interacts with a two-photon-absorbing reservoir. This surviving coherence is responsible for the preservation of squeezing in the steady state despite the effect of dissipation. We relate the origin of squeezing of initially unsqueezed light interacting with two-photon absorbers with the squeezing generated by simple superposition states of light.
A number-phase interaction is suggested that is analogous to the usual quadrature squeezing Hamiltonian for a mode of the electromagnetic field. Applied to an initial coherent state, it produces number-phase squeezed states. For moderate squeezing in either direction the result is close to a minimum uncertainty state. Two different ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\chi}}}^{(3)}$ approximations to the ideal interaction are found, appropriate for the different directions of squeezing. Even with the approximate interaction, the fluctuations in photon number can be reduced to less than half a photon for an arbitrarily intense field.
It has widely been accepted that the laser field is a coherent state with phase diffusion. For example, in quantum theory of the laser it is conventional that the initial field state is given as a coherent state. But strictly speaking, this initial condition is a hypothesis which should be examined through experiments in terms of the quantum fluctuations of the held. In this study a new steady-state solution for the laser field density matrix is suggested, whose initial photon state is a quadrature-phase squeezed state, and whose photon number statistics is just the same as the conventional ansatz.