Generating non-classical light inside an optical cavity by depositing photons

Abstract

The creation of non-classical states of light is an interesting problem, that we solve sending atoms through an optical cavity. We show that it is possible to add or subtract many photons from a cavity field by interacting it resonantly with a two-level atom. The atom, after entangling with the field inside the cavity and exiting it, may be measured in one of the Schmidt states, producing a multiphoton process (in the sense that can add or annihilate more photons than a single transition allows), i.e. adding or subtracting several photons from the cavity field. By plotting the quadratures and the Husimi Q-function, we also show that the non-classical state produced by such measurements is a squeezed state.

Keywords:

• Schmidt decomposition
• multiphoton processes
• non-classical states of light

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for his valuable comments and for bringing forward important references.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.