Spontaneous symmetry breaking as a resource for noncritically squeezed light

TL;DR

This paper reviews and extends the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking as a resource for generating noncritically squeezed light, including new results on polarization symmetry breaking and a fundamental Jaynes-Cummings model.

Contribution

It introduces spontaneous polarization symmetry breaking and proposes a Jaynes-Cummings model to study the phenomenon at the single-photon level.

Findings

Spontaneous symmetry breaking can generate perfect quadrature squeezing.

Extension to polarization symmetry breaking offers new avenues for nonclassical light.

A fundamental Jaynes-Cummings model provides insights into the phenomenon at the quantum level.

Abstract

In the last years we have proposed the use of the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking with the purpose of generating perfect quadrature squeezing. Here we review previous work dealing with spatial (translational and rotational) symmetries, both on optical parametric oscillators and four-wave mixing cavities, as well as present new results. We then extend the phenomenon to the polarization state of the signal field, hence introducing spontaneous polarization symmetry breaking. Finally we propose a Jaynes-Cummings model in which the phenomenon can be investigated at the single-photon-pair level in a non-dissipative case, with the purpose of understanding it from a most fundamental point of view.