Number-phase uncertainty product for displaced number states.

Abstract

The number-phase uncertainty product for displaced number states of the harmonic oscillator is examined within the framework of three different approaches: (i) the Carruthers-Nieto number-phase uncertainty relation in terms of the Susskind-Glogower sine and cosine phase operators, (ii) a similar relation to this calculated with the Pegg-Barnett unitary phase operator, and (iii) the number-phase uncertainty relation arising from the Pegg-Barnett Hermitian phase operator. The corresponding number-phase uncertainty product is calculated extending from average photon numbers 30 down to m for the first few classes of displaced number states (m=0,1,...,5). It is found that, for a displaced number state with a reasonable average number of excited quanta, all three rival phase formalisms yield similar number-phase uncertainty products, tending, for increasingly large magnitude of the displacement parameter, to the constant value m+1/2. On the other hand, for a small number of excited quanta it is found that, according to the first two formalisms, the number-phase uncertainty product for a given class of displaced number states tends to the maximum value \ensuremath{\surd}2m+1 /(\ensuremath{\surd}m+1 - \ensuremath{\surd}m ), while the third phase formalism predicts an entirely different behavior; with decreasing magnitude of displacement parameter, after passing through a maximum, the number-phase uncertainty product falls off eventually to zero making, in particular, the search for minimum number-phase uncertainty states futile. It is argued in favor of this last result, and the possibility of experimental verification, in the realm of quantum optics, is briefly considered.