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Optics and Spectroscopy

A Quantum Interpretation of Light Scattering near the Boundary between Transparent Media with Kerr Nonlinearity

Aleksandr V. Belinsky

Published May 1, 2018• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

The transformation of light by a nonlinear beamsplitter is considered. The beamsplitter is formed by a plane interface between two transparent dielectrics, at least one of which has a Kerr nonlinearity; i.e., its refractive index depends on the intensity of the penetrating radiation. It is shown that the interpretation of the result of calculation of quantum fields at the outputs from such a beamsplitter indicates a violation of the principle of causality in the sense that a subsequent event affects the previous one.

DOI
10.1134/s0030400x18050041

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The transformation of light by a nonlinear beamsplitter is considered. The beamsplitter is formed by a plane interface between two transparent dielectrics, at least one of which has a Kerr nonlinearity; i.e., its refractive index depends on the intensity of the penetrating radiation. It is shown that the interpretation of the result of calculation of quantum fields at the outputs from such a beamsplitter indicates a violation of the principle of causality in the sense that a subsequent event affects the previous one.
Four experimental situations are analyzed from the viewpoint of fulfilling the causality principle: instantaneous collapse of the quantum state vector of a system of entangled particles, a quantum eraser, the quantum Zeno paradox, and light transformation by a nonlinear beam splitter. The last is a planar interface of two transparent dielectrics, at least one of which possesses Kerr nonlinearity, that is, its refractive index depends on the intensity of radiation that penetrates it. It has been shown that the causality principle in the first two cases can be violated only in the sense of the instantaneousness of the manifestation of the effect with respect to the cause. For a nonlinear beam splitter, in addition to the directly opposite predictions given by the quantum and classical theories of its description for the behavior of phase fluctuations of the radiation transformed by the splitter, the causality principle is violated in the most general sense: the effect of the following event on the previous one. The quantum Zeno paradox occupies an intermediate position of democratic involvement of the cause and effect in the general cascade of two subsequent events, i.e., the first event can prevent the second event, just as the second event can prevent the first one.
This is a review of a very interesting (in the authors' view) phenomenon — the operation of a nonlinear light beam splitter. The beam splitter is a flat interface between two transparent dielectrics, at least one of which exhibits Kerr nonlinearity, i.e., its refractive index depends on the transmitted radiation intensity. Interestingly, quantum and classical theories make directly opposite predictions about the phase fluctuations of the output radiation of this device. In classical theory, the phases remain unchanged; in quantum theory, the phases fluctuate in accordance with the amplitude–phase uncertainty relation. The origin of this difference is established at the fundamental level. A further remarkable point about this quantum paradox is that not only is the source beam split in two but one can also create conditions where the two split parts are respectively dominated by amplitude noise and phase noise, thus allowing the selection of photon fluctuations. Results of original studies are summarized and further developed.
The propagation of an optical pulse through a system of two-level atoms embedded in a host medium of constant refractive index n is considered. It is shown that the values of the solutions of the nonlinear system of coupled Maxwell and Schrödinger equations at time t at a point z, in the McCall-Hahn approximation, depend only on data contained in the interval [z - c/nt, z] at t = 0. Thus, information cannot be transmitted through this medium with velocity greater than c/n. Apparent violations of this property in the case of self-induced transparency are explained.
The influence of quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field on the propagation of a polarized light wave in a nonlinear dielectric is investigated. It is shown that in some cases the fluctuations couple to the optical nonlinearities of the medium and make its refractive index dependent on the polarization of the propagating wave. As a consequence, two light waves propagating in the same direction but with different polarizations will have different speeds, so there will be a Kerr-effect birefringence induced by quantum fluctuations. We consider the case of the electromagnetic field in a squeezed vacuum state, where there are regions where the mean squared electric field can be negative and the birefringence effect has the opposite sign to the Kerr effect in classical physics. We give some estimates for the magnitude of these effects, and discuss their possible observability.
We consider two copropagating fields in a nonlinear Kerr medium, each with a particular phase and intensity. The Kerr medium possesses an intensity-dependent refractive index and the phase shift of each field thus depends on the intensities of the fields. Classically it is possible to induce an arbitrary phase shift of one field (the signal field) by either increasing the intensity of the other field (the control field) or by increasing the interaction legnth. We show that if the intensity of the control field is low, the phase shift on the signal is limited by the discrete nature of the photon-number distribution in the control field and cannot be increased simply by increasing the interaction length. In general the maximum phase shift of the signal field is \ensuremath{\varphi} if the control field possesses \ensuremath{\varphi} photons. This limit arises as a consequence of quantum recurrence effects.
In this complement we discuss several examples of optical phenomena in media where the refractive index depends nonlinearly on the intensity , known as optical Kerr media. This nonlinear effect exists in all materials, even isotropic ones, like glass or fused silica, but it is particularly marked in certain physical systems to be exemplified in Section 7B.1. After investigating the propagation of light through such media in Section 7B.2, we shall discuss three applications of the optical Kerr effect (which can be studied in any order). We begin by describing a bistable optical system , when this nonlinear medium is inserted in a Fabry–Perot cavity (Section 7B.3). We then study phase conjugate mirrors and examine their potential applications in adaptive optics (Section 7B.4). Finally, we discuss certain effects occurring during the propagation of an isolated wave, bounded either transversely or temporally, in a Kerr medium, and describe self-focusing effects (Section 7B.5) and self-phase-modulation effects (Section 7B.6). In particular, we shall show that nonlinear effects and dispersion effects can compensate to produce stable structures known as solitons , which maintain their shape during propagation. Examples of third-order nonlinearities Nonlinear response of two-level atoms We begin by studying a simple case of a nonlinear interaction, namely a two-level quantum system under the effects of a plane wave.