Antibunching-like behavior of mesoscopic light.

Area of Science:

• Quantum Optics
• Quantum Information Science

Background:

• Sub-Poissonian light states are crucial for quantum technologies.
• Existing methods for generating these states can be complex or inefficient.

Purpose of the Study:

• To implement a compact experimental setup for generating sub-Poissonian light states.
• To investigate the generation of nonclassical states in the mesoscopic intensity domain.
• To explore the engineering of states approaching single-photon Fock states.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing a pulsed multi-mode twin-beam state.
• Employing photon-number-resolving detectors for direct measurement of the idler arm.
• Dividing the signal arm with a balanced beam splitter and measuring outputs with additional detectors.
• Synchronous detection of photons from all three detectors per laser pulse.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated generation of sub-Poissonian states with antibunching-analogous behavior.
• Observed conditional nonclassical states in the signal arm upon idler arm measurement.
• Quantified nonclassicality via Fano factor and photon autocorrelation coefficient values below one.
• Showcased the potential for engineering states near the one-photon Fock state.

Conclusions:

• The compact setup successfully generates nonclassical sub-Poissonian light states.
• The method leverages quantum correlations in twin beams for state engineering.
• This work advances the development of quantum light sources for advanced applications.