Putting Photons to work

Vladimir P Bykov

Modern concepts of the physical phenomenon described by the term “photon”, which was introduced simultaneously with the acceptance of quantum concepts in physics, are presented. Since that time, this term is a necessary component of each discussion about the physical meaning of quantum mechanics. These discussions are generally carried out within the concepts that are 50 or even 100 years old. At the same time, new fields of science have arisen and been developed in the last century: quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, nonlinear optics, theory of dynamic chaos, etc. The experimental potential has been significantly increased, especially when highly coherent lasers were developed. As a result, the difficult problems of quantum mechanics have become aggravated and enriched. In this paper, we discuss two different approaches to gaining insight into the photon nature, which differ radically. An especially urgent problem is the difference in the estimates of the length of light states that are put into correspondence with photons: laser photons are many orders of magnitude longer than the photons put into correspondence with photocounts. Correspondingly, the spectrum of photocounts is many orders of magnitude wider than the lasing spectrum. The author believes that a photocount cannot be put into correspondence with a photon, because the former is a manifestation of the Coulomb nonlinearity of photodetector. The final solution of the question of the photon nature is expected to be obtained experimentally.

Anonymous

Sophia E. Economou

Konrad Schlichtholz, Bianka Wołoncewicz, Marek Żukowski

We discuss a simplified form of Stokes operators for quantum optical fields that involve the known concept of binning. Behind polarization analyzer photon numbers (more generally intensities) are measured. We have two outputs, say, for horizontal and vertical polarization. If the value obtained in horizontal output is greater than in vertical one we put 1. Otherwise, we put - 1. For equal photon numbers, we put 0. Such observables do not have all properties of the Stokes operators, but can be employed in Bell type measurements, involving polarization analyzers. They are especially handy for states of undefined number of photons, e.g. squeezed vacuum and their realisation is intuitive. We show that our observables can lead to quite robust violations of associated Bell inequalities. We formulate a strongly supported numerically conjecture that one can observe with this approach violations of local realism for the four mode squeezed vacuum for all pumping powers (i.e. gain values).