Introduction to Optical Quantum Information Processing : 5. Quantum States of Light

Masahiro Takeoka, Masahide Sasaki

Masahiro Takeoka, Masahide Sasaki

Masahiro Takeoka, Masahide Sasaki

Masahiro Takeoka, Masahide Sasaki

Christopher C. Gerry, P. L. Knight

This established textbook provides an accessible but comprehensive introduction to the quantum nature of light and its interaction with matter. The field of quantum optics is covered with clarity and depth, from the underlying theoretical framework of field quantization, atom–field interactions, and quantum coherence theory, to important and modern applications at the forefront of current research such as quantum interferometry, squeezed light, quantum entanglement, cavity quantum electrodynamics, laser-cooled trapped ions, and quantum information processing. The text is suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and would be an ideal main text for a course on quantum optics. This long-awaited second edition builds upon the success of the first edition, including many new developments in the field, particularly in the area of quantum state engineering. Additional homework problems have been added, and content from the first edition has been updated and clarified throughout.

H. H. Jen

Chapter 1 first introduces a brief history of quantum optics and its close relation with matter, which makes light–matter interaction one of the blossoming subjects explored in quantum physics. The essence of light–matter interactions lies in the collectivity emerging from the coherent interactions between the constituents within the medium, which is nontrivial in the phenomenon of collective light emissions and many other applications of quantum information processing and quantum computation.