Binomial states and the phase distribution measurement of weak optical fields

Abstract

We show that the eight-port interferometer used by Noh, Fougères, and Mandel [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 71}, 2579 (1993)] to measure their operational phase distribution of light can also be used to measure the canonical phase distribution of weak optical fields, where canonical phase is defined as the complement of photon number. A binomial reference state is required for this purpose, which we show can be obtained to an excellent degree of approximation from a suitably squeezed state. The proposed method requires only photodetectors that can distinguish among zero, one and more than one photons and is not particularly sensitive to photodetector imperfections.

8 Pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Generation of arbitrary quantum states of traveling fields
• Single-shot measurement of quantum optical phase
• Measuring the elements of the optical density matrix

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Continuous variable remote state preparation
• Efficient generation of $N$-photon generalized binomial states in a cavity
• Single-Shot Generation and Detection of a Two-Photon Generalized Binomial State in a Cavity
• Quantum theory of optical temporal phase and instantaneous frequency
• Retrodictive quantum optical state engineering
• Correspondence between field generalized binomial states and coherent atomic states
• Retrodictive quantum state engineering