Gaussian State Description of Squeezed Light

The Gaussian state description of continuous variables is adapted to describe the quantum interaction between macroscopic atomic samples and continuous-wave light beams. The formalism is very efficient: a non-linear differential equation for the covariance matrix of the atomic system explicitly accounts for both the unitary evolution, the dissipation and noise due to the atom-light interaction, and the back-action due to homodyne optical detection on the beam after its intera...

Gaussian states are of increasing interest in the estimation of physical parameters because they are easy to prepare and manipulate in experiments. In this article, we derive formulae for the optimal estimation of parameters using two- and multi-mode Gaussian states. As an application of our result, we derive the optimal Gaussian probe states for the estimation of the parameter characterizing a one-mode squeezing channel.

We present a theory for the estimation of a classical magnetic field by an atomic sample with a gaussian distribution of collective spin components. By incorporating the magnetic field and the probing laser field as quantum variables with gaussian distributions on equal footing with the atoms, we obtain a very versatile description which is readily adapted to include probing with squeezed light, dissipation and loss and additional measurement capabilities on the atomic system...

We present a general analysis of the state obtained by subjecting the output from a continuous-wave (cw) Gaussian field to non-Gaussian measurements. The generic multimode state of cw Gaussian fields is characterized by an infinite dimensional covariance matrix involving the noise correlations of the source. Our theory extracts the information relevant for detection within specific temporal output modes from these correlation functions . The formalism is applied to schemes fo...

In this tutorial, we introduce the basic concepts and mathematical tools needed for phase-space description of a very common class of states, whose phase properties are described by Gaussian Wigner functions: the Gaussian states. In particular, we address their manipulation, evolution and characterization in view of their application to quantum information.

What knowledge can be obtained from the record of a continuous measurement about the quantum state the measured system was in at the beginning of the measurement? The task of quantum state retrodiction, the inverse of the more common state prediction, is rigorously and elegantly addressed in quantum measurement theory through retrodictive Positive Operator Valued Measures. This article provides an introduction to this general framework, presents its practical formulation for ...

We demonstrate the simultaneous quantum state reconstruction of the spectral modes of the light field emitted by a continuous wave degenerate optical parametric amplifier. The scheme is based on broadband measurement of the quantum fluctuations of the electric field quadratures and subsequent Fourier decomposition into spectral intervals. Applying the standard reconstruction algorithms to each bandwidth-limited quantum trajectory, a "spectrum" of density matrices and Wigner f...

We address a phase estimation scheme using Gaussian states in the presence of non-Gaussian phase noise. At variance with previous analysis, we analyze situations in which the noise occurs before encoding phase information. In particular, we study how squeezing may be profitably used before or after phase diffusion. Our results show that squeezing the probe after the noise greatly enhances the sensitivity of the estimation scheme, as witnessed by the increase of the quantum Fi...

Gaussian bipartite states are basic tools for the realization of quantum information protocols with continuous variables. Their complete characterization is obtained by the reconstruction of the corresponding covariance matrix. Here we describe in details and experimentally demonstrate a robust and reliable method to fully characterize bipartite optical Gaussian states by means of a single homodyne detector. We have successfully applied our method to the bipartite states gene...

We report on specific signatures of squeezing for time-modulated light fields. We show that application of periodically-modulated driving fields instead of continuous wave fields drastically improves the degree of quadrature integral squeezing in an optical parametric oscillator. These results particularly allow for applications in time-resolved quantum communication protocols.