Homodyne nonclassical area as a nonclassicality indicator

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new, easily computable nonclassicality indicator for quantum states of light based on the nonclassical area in optical tomograms, which effectively captures nonclassical features and is experimentally accessible.

Contribution

The paper proposes the nonclassical area as a novel nonclassicality measure derived from optical tomograms, providing a practical and robust indicator for quantum states of light.

Findings

Nonclassical area is greater than zero for nonclassical states.

Nonclassical area increases with nonclassicality-inducing operations.

The measure is robust against decoherence.

Abstract

We propose a legitimate and easily computable nonclassicality indicator for the states of electromagnetic fields based on the standard deviation in the measurement of the homodyne rotated quadrature operator. The proposed nonclassicality indicator is the nonclassical area projected by the optical tomogram of the quantum state of light on the optical tomographic plane. If the nonclassical area projected by the optical tomogram of a quantum state is greater than zero, the state is nonclassical, and the area is zero for the pure classical state. It is also noted that the nonclassical area of a quantum state increases with an increase in the strength of nonclassicality inducing operations on the state such as squeezing, photon addition, etc. We have tested the validity of the nonclassical area measure by calculating the same for certain well-known nonclassical states and found that essential features of the nonclassicality shown by the states are captured in the nonclassical area. We have also shown that the nonclassical area is robust against environment-induced decoherence of the states. Nonclassical area projected by the optical tomogram of a quantum state of light is experimentally tractable using the balanced homodyne detection of the quadrature operator of the field, avoiding the reconstruction of the density matrix or the quasiprobability distribution of the state.