ac DAT °°>” whb* ) b& The Quantum Theory of Light Third Edition RODNEY LOUDON Department of Electronic Systems Engineering University of Essex OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESSOXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6vr Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objectives of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogoté Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Oxford University Press, 1973, 1983, 2000 ‘The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First edition 1973 Second edition 1983 Third edition 2000 Reprinted 2001 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. ‘You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data, Data available ISBN 0 19 850177 3 (Hbk) ISBN 0 19 850176 5 (Pbk) ‘Typeset by the author Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King’s LynnPreface As in previous editions, the purpose of the book remains the provision of a detailed account of the basic theory needed for an understanding of the quantum properties of light. The material is intended to bridge the gap between standard quanturn mechanics, electromagnetic theory and statistical mechanics, as taught at undergraduate level, and the theory needed to explain experiments in quantum optics. The development of the quantum theory of light presented here is thus governed by the needs of experimental interpretation, but only a few represen- tative experiments are discussed in any detail and the reader must look elsewhere for more complete accounts of the observations of quantum optical phenomena (for example, Bachor, H.-A., A Guide to Experiments in Quantum Optics (Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 1998)). The aim throughout is to give the simplest and most direct account of the basic theory. Some of the changes from the second edition result from attempts to improve obscure derivations and to remove mistakes but most are made in response to experimental developments in the subject over the past 18 years or so. For example, the emergence of parametric down-conversion as a key process in the generation of nonclassical light necessitates not only a treatment of the nonlinear process itself but also of a range of topics that includes photon pair states, two-photon interference, homodyne detection and squeezed light. Again, the central role of the beam splitter in both single and two-photon interference experiments requires a careful account of its quantum-optical properties. Much of the material is based on lecture courses given by the author to final- year undergraduates, to first-year graduate students and to more advanced post- graduates and research workers. Previous editions of the book have been widely used as texts for the different levels of course. This new edition is also designed to serve as a textbook rather than as a monograph, with treatments of the theory that include some shortcuts and omissions of more advanced derivations (see Barnett, S.M. and Radmore, P.M., Methods in Theoretical Quantum Optics (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997) for the more detailed mathematics). Well over 100 problems are distributed through the text to encourage students to use the theory themselves. There is no serious attempt to cite all the original sources of the various concepts and theories in quantum optics but, instead, references are given to books and papers that the author finds clear and useful as aids to under- standing. Quantum optics is very well served by more advanced monographs, reviews and journal articles (for a comprehensive listing at the time of writing, see Slosser, J.J. and Meystre, P., Resource letter: CQO-1: Coherence in quantum optics, Am. J. Phys. 65, 275-86 (1997)). The scope of the material is restricted in various other ways but, most impor- tantly, in the frequency range of the electromagnetic radiation for which the