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Photon antibunching

A. M. Fox

Published Apr 27, 2006• 0 citations
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Abstract

Abstract In the previous chapter we studied how light beams can be classified according to their photon statistics. We saw that the observation of Poissonian and super Poissonian statistics could be explained by classical wave theory, but not sub Poissonian statistics. Hence sub-Poissonian statistics is a clear signature of the photon nature of light.

DOI
10.1093/oso/9780198566724.003.0006

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Abstract In the previous chapter we studied how light beams can be classified according to their photon statistics. We saw that the observation of Poissonian and super Poissonian statistics could be explained by classical wave theory, but not sub Poissonian statistics. Hence sub-Poissonian statistics is a clear signature of the photon nature of light.
Abstract The task of quantum optics is to study the consequences of considering a beam of light as a stream of photons rather than as a classical wave. It turns out that the differences are rather subtle, and we have to look quite hard to see significant departures from the predictions of the classical theories. In this chapter we shall approach the subject from the perspective of the statistical properties of the photon stream. We shall study the three different types of photon statistics that can occur, namely: Poissonian, super-Poissonian, and sub-Poissonian.
The statistical fluctuations of light can, under certain circumstances, exhibit a number of interesting nonclassical features. These include photon antibunching, sub-Poissonian statistics, and squeezing, all of which exist only in a quantum field. The three effects are distinct, and do not necessarily go together, although the first two are sometimes mistakenly treated as interchangeable. Both photon antibunching and sub-Poissonian statistics have been observed in experiments on resonance fluorescence from single atoms, which is described. Squeezing has not yet been seen experimentally, although many nonlinear processes are expected to give rise to it. The squeezed state can be recognized in heterodyne or homodyne experiments, where the squeezing becomes manifest as sub-Poissonian photon fluctuations.
Two manifestations of the quantum nature of coherent, resonant light scattering from atoms are photon antibunching and sub-Poissonian statistics. The existence of both effects has been demonstrated previously; in the present work, using individual barium atoms, measurements of the dependence of the latter effect on the frequency of the radiation field are presented. The distinction between the two phenomena is demonstrated by data that exhibit antibunching, yet have a photon counting distribution with variance equal to the Poisson value.