This volume contains contributions based on the lectures delivered at the Fifth International Symposium on Quantum Optics. This Conference, the fifth in a tri ennial series hosted in New Zealand, was held in Rotorua, 13-17 February 1989. The Conference was attended by 75 participants from New Zealand, Australia, Japan, USA, France, Italy and Germany. There was also a high level of par ticipation from graduate students from New Zealand and Australia, who greatly benefitted from the opportunity to attend world-class conferences. The partici pants were housed in the Hyatt Hotel and surrounding motels and all enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere offered by Rotorua in the Southern Hemisphere summer. There were 24 invited papers, given as oral presentations of 40 minutes, and 22 poster papers. The major topics covered at the Conference were new experimental and theoretical results in nonclassical light, including sub-shot-noise light sources. We were fortunate in that all major experimental groups in the world working in this area were represented. The latest experimental results from AT & T Lab oratories, NT & T Laboratories, mM Laboratories, Ecole Normale Superieure and the Californian Institute of Technology were reported. New theoretical results from Southern Hemisphere participants included a true phase operator for quantum fields derived by Professor David Pegg of Griffiths University and a general treat ment of lasers pumped without shot noise by Professor D. F. Walls of Auckland University.

Klappentext

This book reports recent advances in quantum noise reduction, squeezed light generation and quantum measurement problems in optics. Further contributions treat more general aspects of atomic spectroscopy, laser physics and the generation and propagation of coherent light. All major experimental groups working around the world are represented and many present their latest results. Among the new theoretical results are a true phase operator for quantum fields and a general treatment of lasers pumped without shot noise. There is also the first extensive report of very short pulses produced in an argon ion laser by swept gain superfluorescence.

Inhalt
I Quantum Noise Reduction and Squeezing.- Photon Noise Reduction in Lasers by Suppression of Pump Fluctuations.- Squeezing, Bistability and Instability in the Optical Parametric Oscillator.- Non-linear Beam Splitters in the Production of Squeezed Coherent Light.- Photon Statistics of Broadband Squeezed Vacuum.- Nearly Transparent Optical Networks.- Input-Output Fields and Their Squeezing for Arbitrary Linear Response.- Time Dependent Quantum Correlations and Squeezing.- II Quantum Measurement Problems in Optics.- Backaction Evasion Experiments.- Squeezing and Quantum Nondemolition Measurement Using Self-Induced Transparency Solitons.- The Effect of Measurement on Quantum Optical Systems.- Input-Output Formulations of Photodetection.- Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Correlations in Nondegenerate Parametric Amplification.- Phase in Quantum Electrodynamics.- A Bifurcation in Squeezed State Physics: But How? or Area-of-Overlap in Phase Space as a Guide to the Phase Distribution and the Action-Angle Wigner Function of a Squeezed State.- III Atomic Spectroscopy and Cavity QED.- Toward the Theoretical Limit of High Resolution in Atomic Spectroscopy.- Phase Transitions of Stored Laser-Cooled Ions: A First Step Towards Crystallization in Storage Rings.- Modulation Spectroscopy and Cavity QED.- Taming Sodium.- IV Laser Physics.- Single Photon Transition Correlated Emission Schemes and Their Dependence on Pump Fluctuations.- Stochastic Position Noise, or Why a Laser Beam Cannot Go Straight.- The Generation of Mode-Locked Pi Pulses.- Spontaneous and Induced Solitons in Stimulated Raman Scattering.- Many-Body Theory of the Electron-Hole Plasma in Bulk and Quantum-Well Semiconductor Lasers.- Theory of Semiconductor Lasers.- Poster Papers.- Index of Contributors.