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Nonclassical correlations of photon number and field components in the vacuum state

Holger F. Hofmann, Takayoshi Kobayashi, Akira Furusawa

quant-pharXiv:quant-ph/9912072

Abstract

It is shown that the quantum jumps in the photon number n from zero to one or more photons induced by backaction evasion quantum nondemolition measurements of a quadrature component x of the vacuum light field state are strongly correlated with the quadrature component measurement results. This correlation corresponds to the operator expectation value <xnx> which is equal to one fourth for the vacuum even though the photon number eigenvalue is zero. Quantum nondemolition measurements of a quadrature component can thus provide experimental evidence of the nonclassical operator ordering dependence of the correlations between photon number and field components in the vacuum state.

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