In last years increasing attention has been again devoted to interpretations of quantum theory. In the same time interesting quantum optical experiments have been performed using nonlinear optical processes, in particular frequency down conversion, which provided new information about nature of a photon on the basis of interference and correlation (coincidence) phenomena. Such single-photon and twin-photon effects of quantum optics provide new point of view of interpretations of quantum theory and new tests of its principles. The purpose of this book is to discuss these questions. To follow this goal we give brief reviews of principles of quantum theory and of quantum theory of measurement. As a fundamental theoretical tool the coherent state technique is adopted based on a general algebraic treatment, including the de scription of interaction of radiation and matter. Typical quantum behaviour of physical systems is exhibited by nonclassical optical phenomena, which can be examined using photon interferences and correlations. These phenomena are closely related to violation of various classical inequalities and Bell's in equalities. The most important part of this book discusses quantum optical experiments supporting quantum theory. This book may be considered as a continuation of previous monographs by one of the authors on Coherence of Light (Van Nostrand Reinhold, London 1972, second edition D. Reidel, Dordrecht 1985) and on Quantum Statistics of Linear and Nonlinear Optical Phenomena (D. Reidel, Dordrecht 1984, second edition Kluwer, Dordrecht 1991), which may serve as a preparation for reading this book.

Autorentext
JAN PERINA, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Optics at Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. He is also the author/coauthor of several other books and numerous articles in the field of quantum optics.

Klappentext

This book deals with the contemporary development of quantum theory from the point of view of quantum optics. The fundamentals of quantum theory are presented, with particular attention being given to the quantum theory of measurement. General coherent states are adopted as the most important theoretical tool for the description of the interaction of optical fields with matter. Quantum theory predicts various nonclassical phenomena, such as squeezing of vacuum fluctuations, photon antibunching, sub-Poisson photon statistics, collapses and revivals of atomic motion, etc. These quantum effects can be observed, together with violation of various classical and Bell's inequalities, using photon interference and correlation techniques. This is demonstrated by experiments involving single-photon and two-photon interferences, squeezed and sub-Poisson light and twin photons produced by frequency down conversion. All these results are in agreement with quantum theory and they confirm the wave--particle duality of a photon and the `nonlocal' features of quantum theory. br/ For research workers in quantum mechanics, quantum theory, quantum optics and electronics, optical communications, optoelectronics, photonics and nonlinear optics, optical processing and computing. br/

Inhalt
1 Introduction.- 2 Fundamentals of quantum theroy.- 2.1 Axioms of quantum mechanics.- 2.2 More on quantum mechanics: states, observables and yes-no experiments.- 2.3 Time evolution.- 2.4 Uncertainty relations.- 2.5 Symmetries.- 2.6 Canonical quantization.- 2.7 Identical particles and the second quantization.- 2.8 Quantization of the free electromagnetic field.- 2.9 Quantum correlation functions and their properties.- 2.10 Appendix: mathematical tools.- 3 Quantum theory of measurement.- 3.1 Foundation of quantum measurement.- 3.2 Formalism of quantum measurement.- 3.3 Quantum optical measurements.- 3.4 Quantum phase.- 3.5 Linear amplifiers.- 3.6 Quantum nondemolition measurement.- 3.7 High-precision measurement and detection of gravitational waves.- 4 Coherent states.- 4.1 The general notion of the coherent state.- 4.2 Coherent states associated with Lie groups.- 4.3 Coherent states of the harmonic oscillator.- 4.4 Squeezed states.- 4.5 Spin coherent states.- 4.6 Heisenberg-Langevin approach to quantum statistics.- 4.7 Schrödinger approach to quantum statistics master equation and generalized Fokker-Planck equation.- 4.8 Generalized superposition of coherent fields and quantum noise.- 5 Nonclassical optical phenomena and their relations.- 5.1 Quadrature squeezing squeezing of vacuum fluctuations.- 5.2 Antibunching of photons.- 5.3 Photon-number squeezing sub-Poissonian photon statistics.- 5.4 Oscillations in photon distributions.- 5.5 Quantum phase.- 5.6 Indirect measurements of quasidistributions.- 5.7 Relations of quantum features of light.- 5.8 Interaction of a single atom with light cavity quantum electrodynamics and cavity quantum optics.- 6 Photon interferences and correlations.- 6.1 Second-order interferences.- 6.2 Fourth-order interferences Hanbury Brown-Twiss correlations.- 6.3 Higher-order phenomena.- 6.4 Single photon interferences.- 6.5 Wave-particle duality.- 6.6 Methods involving frequency down conversion and feedbacks.- 7 Quantum optical and Bell's.- 7.1 Inequalities of quantum optics and their interpretation.- 7.2 Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and Bell's inequalities.- 8 Quantum optical experiments supporting quantum theory.- 8.1 Single-photon interference experiments.- 8.2 Polarization correlation experiments.- 8.3 Experiments with feedbacks.- 8.4 Experiments with squeezed light.- 8.5 Experiments with sub-Poisson light.- 8.6 Experiments with frequency down conversion.- 9 Conclusions.- References.