Measurement of the Wigner function via atomic beam deflection in the Raman–Nath regime

Abstract

A method for the reconstruction of photon statistics and even the Wigner function of a quantized cavity field state is proposed. The method is based on the measurement of momentum distribution of two-level atoms in the Raman–Nath regime. Both the cases of resonant and off-resonant atom–field interaction are considered. The Wigner function is reconstructed by displacing the photon statistics of the cavity field. This reconstruction method is straightforward and does not need much mathematical manipulation of experimental data.