Vacuum state truncation via the quantum Zeno effect

Abstract

In the context of quantum state engineering we analyze the effect of observation on nonlinear optical $n$-photon Fock state generation. We show that it is possible to truncate the vacuum component from an arbitrary photon number superposition without modifying its remaining parts. In the course of the full dynamical analysis of the effect of observation, it is also found that the Zeno and the anti-Zeno effects repeat periodically. We discuss the close relationship between vacuum state truncation and so-called "interaction-free" measurement.