Classical Simulation of Squeezed Vacuum in Optical Waveguide Arrays

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how classical light diffraction in specially designed optical waveguide arrays can simulate quantum two-mode squeezing processes, revealing a transition from photon growth to Bloch oscillations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel classical simulation method for quantum squeezing using optical waveguides, mapping the entire Fock space with arrays representing fixed photon number differences.

Findings

Classical diffraction mimics quantum squeezing dynamics.

Identifies a transition from photon number growth to Bloch oscillations.

Shows revivals of input states linked to phase mismatch.

Abstract

We reveal that classical light diffraction in arrays of specially modulated coupled optical waveguides can simulate the quantum process of two-mode squeezing in nonlinear media, with the waveguide mode amplitudes corresponding the signal and idler photon numbers. The whole Fock space is mapped by a set of arrays, where each array represents the states with a fixed difference between the signal and idler photon numbers. We demonstrate a critical transition from photon number growth to Bloch oscillations with periodical revivals of an arbitrary input state, associated with an increase of the effective phase mismatch between the pump and the squeezed photons.