Nonperturbative approach to multimode photodetection.

Abstract

A multimode photodetection theory is developed that includes both the presence of radiation sources and the damping of the field due to the measurement. Making use of Green's-function techniques and the rotating-wave approximation, the counting statistics is calculated in terms of input field quantities. The treatment of the detector-field interaction yields expressions that essentially differ from the results of nonperturbative single-mode theories but are very similar to those of the well-known perturbative photodetection theories. The field damping due to the detection of photons is found to lead to a renormalized detector response function that approaches a maximum value if the number of detector atoms tends to infinity. It is worth noting that our result may be closely related to those of Mandel's heuristic description of photodetection based on the concept of configuration-space photon number operators.