Nonclassical properties of states engineered by superpositions of quantum operations on classical states

• Published in: Journal of physics. B, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics Atomic, molecular, and optical physics, 2012-10, Vol.45 (20), p.205501-1-10
• Main Authors: Chatterjee, Arpita, Dhar, Himadri Shekhar, Ghosh, Rupamanjari
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Classical and quantum physics: mechanics and fields; Coherence; Compressing; Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Nonclassical field states; squeezed, antibunched and sub-poissonian states; operational definitions of the phase of the field; phase measurements; nonclassical states; Operators; Optics; Photon statistics and coherence theory; Physics; Quantum information; Quantum optics; quantum state engineering; squeezing; Statistics; sub-Poissonian statistics; volume of negativity; Wigner distribution
• ISSN: 0953-4075; 1361-6455
• DOI: 10.1088/0953-4075/45/20/205501

We consider an experimentally realizable scheme for manipulating quantum states using a general superposition of products of field annihilation () and creation () operators of the type (), with s2 + t2 = 1. Such an operation, when applied on states with classical features, is shown to introduce strong nonclassicality. We quantify the generated degree of nonclassicality by the negative volume of Wigner distribution in the phase space and investigate two other observable nonclassical features, sub-Poissonian statistics and squeezing. We find that the operation introduces negativity in the Wigner distribution of an input coherent state and changes the Gaussianity of an input thermal state. This provides the possibility of engineering quantum states with specific nonclassical features.