Optical squeezed vacuum

A single optical mode in a squeezed vacuum state. In principal optical quadratures, its variances are $e^{-2r}/4$ and $e^{2r}/4$, while its mean photon number is ${\sinh }^{2}r$. Its mean field vanishes. A degenerate optical parametric amplifier generates the state by pair creation with phase fixed by the pump. Loss admixes unsqueezed vacuum and limits the measured variance reduction.

The single-mode squeeze operator changes occupation in pairs. Consequently an optical squeezed vacuum has only even photon numbers, with mean $s={\sinh }^{2}r$ and variance $2s(s+1)$. Its large number fluctuations are compatible with quadrature squeezing: they concern different observables.

Here $s={\sinh }^{2}r$. The pair moment is $⟨N(N-1)⟩=3s^2+s$. These expressions follow from the single-mode Bogoliubov transformation or by differentiating the even-occupation probability generating function $G(t)=[\cosh r\sqrt{1-t^2{\tanh }^{2}r}{]}^{-1}$.