Measurement of Stokes-operator squeezing for continuous-variable orbital angular momentum

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally a measurement scheme for the Stokes operators for the continuous-variable squeezed states of orbital angular momentum (OAM). An OAM squeezed state is generated by coupling a dim Hermite-Gauss HG01-mode quadrature-squeezed light beam with a bright HG10-mode coherent light beam on a 98/2 beam splitter. Using an asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometer with an extra Dove prism in one arm, we measured the three orbital Stokes operators of the OAM squeezed states with a self-homodyne detection and finally characterized their positions and noise on the orbital Poincaré sphere.