Quantum phase distributions and quasidistributions
B. M. Garraway, P. L. Knight · Physical Review A · 1992
We analyze the relationship between the phase distribution for optical fields derived using phase-operator techniques with that derived from the Wigner phase-space quantum quasiprobability. We show that these two approaches agree for field states dominated by Fock states within a narrow distribution, but differ for cases involving widely separated photon-number contributions. Dominance by even Fock states can result in a negative Wigner phase distribution. An example of this is drawn from the Jaynes-Cummings model.