L. Knöll

Generating Schrodinger-cat-like states by means of conditional measurements on a beam splitter

A scheme for generating Schrodinger-cat-like states of a single-mode optical field by means of conditional measurement is proposed. Feeding a squeezed vacuum into a beam splitter and counting the photons in one of the output channels, the conditional states in the other output channel exhibit a number of properties that are very similar to those of superpositions of two coherent states with opposite phases. We present analytical and numerical results for the photon-number and quadrature-component distributions of the conditional states and their Wigner and Husimi functions. Further, we discuss the effect of realistic photocounting on the states. @S1050-2947~97!06404-4#

Three-dimensional quantization of the electromagnetic field in dispersive and absorbing inhomogeneous dielectrics

A quantization scheme for the phenomenological Maxwell theory of the full electromagnetic field in an inhomogeneous three-dimensional, dispersive and absorbing dielectric medium is developed. The classical Maxwell equations with spatially varying and Kramers-Kronig consistent permittivity are regarded as operator-valued field equations, introducing additional current- and charge-density operator fields in order to take into account the noise associated with the dissipation in the medium. It is shown that the equal-time commutation relations between the fundamental electromagnetic fields

Spontaneous decay in the presence of dispersing and absorbing bodies: General theory and application to a spherical cavity

\hat E

Spontaneous decay of an excited atom in an absorbing dielectric

and

Electromagnetic-field quantization and spontaneous decay in left-handed media

\hat B

GENERATION OF ARBITRARY QUANTUM STATES OF TRAVELING FIELDS

and the potentials

Casimir-polder forces: A nonperturbative approach

\hat A

Resonant dipole-dipole interaction in the presence of dispersing and absorbing surroundings

and

Intermolecular energy transfer in the presence of dispersing and absorbing media

\hat \phi

Decay of an excited atom near an absorbing microsphere

in the Coulomb gauge can be expressed in terms of the Green tensor of the classical problem. From the Green tensors for bulk material and an inhomogeneous medium consisting of two bulk dielectrics with a common planar interface it is explicitly proven that the well-known equal-time commutation relations of QED are preserved.