Phase of a Microscopic Electromagnetic Field and Its Measurement
Henryk Paul · Fortschritte der Physik · 1974
Abstract A novel approach to the quantum mechanical description of phase properties of a one‐mode low‐intensity radiation field is presented. The procedure is based upon the correspondence between Glauber states and classical waves of fixed phase ϕ and amplitude a, and, in contrast to the conventional quantum mechanical phase concepts, allows to make contact between certain operators ℰm corresponding to the classical quantities exp {imφ} (m = ± 1, ± 2, …) and realistic measurements. In the observation, a large amplification of the microscopic field by means of a linear quantum amplifier plays a decisive role. Since the amplified field is a macroscopic one, the measurement of phase is not problematic, and hence, in particular, average values «exp {imϕ}» can be determined experimentally. The main result of our analysis is that the mean values «exp {imϕ}» are equal to the quantum mechanical expectation values for the operators ℰm with respect to the field before amplification. To obtain this result it became necessary to calculate Glauber's P function for the amplified field in case of an arbitrary state for the initial field.