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arXiv:quant-ph/9904099 · Physical Review Letters

Quantum Soliton Generation Using an Interferometer

M. J. Werner

Published Nov 9, 1998• 35 citations
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Abstract

For the first time a method for realizing macroscopic quantum optical solitons is presented. Simultaneous photon-number and momentum squeezing is predicted using soliton propagation in an interferometer. Extraction of soliton pulses closer to true quantum solitons than their coherent counterparts from mode-locked lasers is possible. Moreover, it is a general method of reducing photon-number fluctuations below the shot-noise level for nonsoliton pulses as well. It is anticipated that similar reductions in particle fluctuations could occur for other forms of interfering bosonic fields whenever self-interaction nonlinearities exist, for example, interacting ultracold atoms.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.81.4132

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For the first time a method for realizing macroscopic quantum optical solitons is presented. Simultaneous photon-number and momentum squeezing is predicted using soliton propagation in an interferometer. Extraction of soliton pulses closer to true quantum solitons than their coherent counterparts from mode-locked lasers is possible. Moreover, it is a general method of reducing photon-number fluctuations below the shot-noise level for nonsoliton pulses as well. It is anticipated that similar reductions in particle fluctuations could occur for other forms of interfering bosonic fields whenever self-interaction nonlinearities exist, for example, interacting ultracold atoms.
Summary form only given. We have shown for the first time that large photon-number squeezing of coherent pulses can be produced by a Sagnac loop for a significant range of input energies and that it is larger than predicted for directly spectrally filtered optical fiber solitons. Despite this, we pointed out the similarities between the two schemes. In essence, a Sagnac fiber loop is capable of producing optical pulses closer to true quantum solitons than their coherent counterparts from modelocked lasers.
We report the photon-number squeezing of optical solitons. 2.7 ps pulses were launched as solitons down a 1.5 km optical fiber. For energies slightly above that of fundamental solitons, they broadened spectrally due to self-phase modulation caused by ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(3)}$ nonlinearities. Filtering away outlying components of the broadened spectra squeezed the soliton's photon-number fluctuations to 2.3 dB (41%) below the shot-noise limit. Accounting for losses, this corresponds to 3.7 dB (57%) photon-number squeezing. A quantum field-theoretic model shows that the outlying spectral components have large energy fluctuations, so that their removal causes squeezing.
Direct photon-number squeezing is demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge, in a nonlinear fiber-optic interferometer. Launching 126-fs solitons into a highly asymmetric Sagnac loop, the maximum photocurrent noise reduction was $3.9\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.2\mathrm{dB}$ below shot noise, corresponding to $6.0\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.9\mathrm{dB}$, when corrected for linear losses. The loop is a model system for squeezing generated by the interference of two pulses after nonlinear propagation through a fiber.
Classical optical solitons propagate in optical fibers without temporal or spectral distortion as a result of a balance between phase shifts due to group velocity dispersion and those due to nonlinear self-phase modulation. This balance is achieved by the proper choice of pulse shape and duration for a given pulse energy. The quantum fluctuations associated with a coherent soliton do not undergo stationary propagation, however, and a number of effects are predicted, including the evolution of vacuum noise associated with the input coherent pulse into squeezed fluctuations and the temporal spreading of the soliton pulse because of dispersion acting on quantum fluctuations of the pulse frequency.
We study a different scheme for generating photon number correlation and squeezing for two copropagating pulses, a soliton and a trapped pulse, in an optical fiber. When the center wavelength of a trapped pulse is close to that of a soliton pulse, the two pulses interact with each other through the third-order optical nonlinear process and exchange photons between the two pulses. The soliton pulse exhibits photon number squeezing. When the center wavelengths of the two pulses are sufficiently separated and no photon-number exchange takes place, the strong negative correlation in the photon number between the parts of the trapped pulse and the soliton pulse is formed via cross-phase modulation. By measuring the photon number of the negatively correlated part of the trapped pulse, we can obtain the photon number of the soliton pulse with a variance less than the shot-noise limit.