dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaOn the Quantum Phase Operator for Coherent States
| Authors | Bo-Sture K. Skagerstam, Bjorn A. Bergsjordet |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/0307156 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0307156 |
| DOI | 10.1238/Physica.Regular.070a00026 |
Abstract
In papers by Lynch [Phys. Rev. A41, 2841 (1990)] and Gerry and Urbanski [Phys. Rev. A42, 662 (1990)] it has been argued that the phase-fluctuation laser experiments of Gerhardt, B\"uchler and Lifkin [Phys. Lett. 49A, 119 (1974)] are in good agreement with the variance of the Pegg-Barnett phase operator for a coherent state, even for a small number of photons. We argue that this is not conclusive. In fact, we show that the variance of the phase in fact depends on the relative phase between the phase of the coherent state and the off-set phase $\phi_0$ of the Pegg-Barnett phase operator. This off-set phase is replaced with the phase of a reference beam in an actual experiment and we show that several choices of such a relative phase can be fitted to the experimental data. We also discuss the Noh, Foug\`{e}res and Mandel [Phys.Rev. A46, 2840 (1992)] relative phase experiment in terms of the Pegg-Barnett phase taking post-selection conditions into account.
{
"annotation_id": "6c4b6d09-54f6-4081-8e0c-74cf49d7415f",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:59.129000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:59.129000Z",
"file_hash": "0b9ab0e04af0e28ae7b1d338d7d28f5db77473e97d6a6a9d64dab7667b784aff",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "In papers by Lynch [Phys. Rev. A41, 2841 (1990)] and Gerry and Urbanski\n[Phys. Rev. A42, 662 (1990)] it has been argued that the phase-fluctuation\nlaser experiments of Gerhardt, B\\\"uchler and Lifkin [Phys. Lett. 49A, 119\n(1974)] are in good agreement with the variance of the Pegg-Barnett phase\noperator for a coherent state, even for a small number of photons. We argue\nthat this is not conclusive. In fact, we show that the variance of the phase in\nfact depends on the relative phase between the phase of the coherent state and\nthe off-set phase $\\phi_0$ of the Pegg-Barnett phase operator. This off-set\nphase is replaced with the phase of a reference beam in an actual experiment\nand we show that several choices of such a relative phase can be fitted to the\nexperimental data. We also discuss the Noh, Foug\\`{e}res and Mandel [Phys.Rev.\nA46, 2840 (1992)] relative phase experiment in terms of the Pegg-Barnett phase\ntaking post-selection conditions into account.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/0307156",
"authors": [
"Bo-Sture K. Skagerstam",
"Bjorn A. Bergsjordet"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1238/Physica.Regular.070a00026",
"title": "On the Quantum Phase Operator for Coherent States",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0307156"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "a53a5307-c4b8-424b-b582-91c816df5213",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}