Macroscopic quantum fluctuations in noise-sustained optical patterns

Abstract

We investigate quantum effects in pattern-formation for a degenerate optical parametric oscillator with walk-off. This device has a convective regime in which macroscopic patterns are both initiated and sustained by quantum noise. Familiar methods based on linearization about a pseudo-classical field fail in this regime and new approaches are required. We employ a method in which the pump field is treated as a c-number variable but is driven by the c-number representation of the quantum sub-harmonic signal field. This allows us to include the effects of the fluctuations in the signal on the pump, which in turn act back on the signal. We find that the non-classical effects, in the form of squeezing, survive just above the threshold of the convective regime. Further above threshold the macroscopic quantum noise suppresses these effects. PACS number(s): 42.50. Lc, 42.50.Dv, 42.50.Ct, 42.65.Sf

Giant noise amplification in synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillators

“…The emitted signal is entirely noise driven and is expected to be correlated to the photon fluctuations in the cavity. The correct representation of quantum fluctuations in a semiclassical framework [5], like the one used here, is a natural extension of the preliminary results presented in this paper and will be reported elsewhere. Whatever the source of noise, pseudospectra offer a computationally efficient manner to quantify the transient amplification factor and determine the best parameters to observe the remarkable phenomenon of giant noise amplification.…”

“…[1] it was shown that in the pulse compression regime the signal pulses may suffer from considerable noise-induced jitter. In the context of quantum optics, optical parametric oscillators have been suggested as a tool to amplify and detect quantum fluctuations [5]. However, this requires very large amplification factors.…”

Transverse dynamics in cavity nonlinear optics (2000–2003)

“…Nonclassical effects, in the form of squeezing, survive just above the threshold of the convective regime. Above threshold, the macroscopic quantum noise suppresses these effects [306]. In the case of spatially tilted macroscopic signal beams, the transverse pattern formed in a DOPO above threshold still displays quantum correlations between the two beams, so that their intensity difference exhibits subPoissonian statistics [307].…”

Turing instability in quantum activator-inhibitor systems

“…In 1972, Gierer and Meinhardt provided an intuitive explanation of Turing instability by introducing the now well-known concept of activator-inhibitor systems with local self-enhancement and long-range inhibition [33]. Later, Turing instability and the resulting patterns were studied in various systems, such as those undergoing chemical reactions [34,35] or biological morphogenesis [36][37][38], ecological populations [39][40][41], and nonlinear optical systems [42][43][44][45]. Turing patterns have also been theoretically investigated in stochastic systems [46][47][48][49] and networked systems [50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57].…”