2 books found
This book offers a systematic and comprehensive exposition of the quantum stochastic methods that have been developed in the field of quantum optics. It includes new treatments of photodetection, quantum amplifier theory, non-Markovian quantum stochastic processes, quantum input--output theory, and positive P-representations. It is the first book in which quantum noise is described by a mathematically complete theory in a form that is also suited to practical applications. Special attention is paid to non-classical effects, such as squeezing and antibunching. Chapters added to the previous edition, on the stochastic Schrödinger equation, and on cascaded quantum systems, and now supplemented, in the third edition by a chapter on recent developments in various pertinent fields such as laser cooling, Bose-Einstein condensation, quantum feedback and quantum information.
by Peter W. Milonni
2019 · Oxford University Press
This is an introduction to the quantum theory of light and its broad implications and applications. A significant part of the book covers material with direct relevance to current basic and applied research, such as quantum fluctuations and their role in laser physics and the theory of forces between macroscopic bodies (Casimir effects). The book includes numerous historical sidelights throughout, and approximately seventy exercises. The book provides detailed expositions of the theory with emphasis on general physical principles. Foundational topics in classical and quantum electrodynamics are addressed in the first half of the book, including the semiclassical theory of atom-field interactions, the quantization of the electromagnetic field in dispersive and dissipative media, uncertainty relations, and spontaneous emission. The second half begins with a chapter on the Jaynes-Cummings model, dressed states, and some distinctly quantum-mechanical features of atom-field interactions, and includes discussion of entanglement, the no-cloning theorem, von Neumann's proof concerning hidden variable theories, Bell's theorem, and tests of Bell inequalities. The last two chapters focus on quantum fluctuations and fluctuation-dissipation relations, beginning with Brownian motion, the Fokker-Planck equation, and classical and quantum Langevin equations. Detailed calculations are presented for the laser linewidth, spontaneous emission noise, photon statistics of linear amplifiers and attenuators, and other phenomena. Van der Waals interactions, Casimir forces, the Lifshitz theory of molecular forces between macroscopic media, and the many-body theory of such forces based on dyadic Green functions are analyzed from the perspective of Langevin noise, vacuum field fluctuations, and zero-point energy.