Quantum fluctations of coherent light in nonlinear media

Abstract

The interaction of coherent light with a nonlinear medium is modeled here by a general quantum anharmonic oscillator. The model is not exactly solvable in a closed analytical form. But we need operator solutions of the equations of motion corresponding to these models in order to study the quantum fluctuations of coherent light in nonlinear media. In the present work we derive approximate operator solutions. From these solutions we observe that there exists an apparent discrepancy between the solutions obtained by different techniques. We compare different solutions and conclude that all correct solutions are equivalent and the apparent discrepancy is due to the use of different ordering of the operators. We use these solutions to investigate the possibilities of observing different optical phenomena in a nonlinear dielectric medium. To be precise, we have studied quantum phase fluctuations of coherent light in a third order inversion symmetric nonlinear medium. Fluctuations in phase space quadrature for the same system are studied and the possibility of generating squeezed state is reported. Fluctuations in photon number are studied and the nonclassical phenomenon of antibunching is predicted. We have generalized the results obtained for third order nonlinear medium and have studied the interaction of an intense laser beam with a general (m-1)-th order nonlinear medium. Aharanov Anandan nonadiabatic geometric phase is also discussed in the context of (m-1)-th order nonlinear medium.