Quantum correlations, particularly squeezing and entanglement, are essential in quantum technologies such as metrology, computation, and simulation, as well as in foundational studies. In quantum optics, these phenomena are often intertwined: two squeezed beams can be transformed into entangled beams by mixing them at a beam splitter, and vice versa. However, it is less common to encounter states where two beams are simultaneously squeezed individually while retaining global entanglement. These hybrid states evidently present potential possibilities for applications. In this work, we propose a compact single-cavity source based on a nondegenerate optical parametric oscillator operated below threshold, capable of generating such light—signal and idler beams that are quadrature-squeezed individually while maintaining global entanglement. This behavior arises from an additional linear coupling between the signal and idler, resembling a beam-splitter interaction. We discuss two physical implementations of this system: one based on intra-cavity electro-optic modulators and the other on optomechanical interactions. This unique combination of local and non-local quantum correlations opens the door to novel quantum communication and metrology protocols.

We propose a nonlinear quantum walk model inspired in a photonic implementation in which the polarization state of the light field plays the role of the coin-qubit. In particular, we take profit of the nonlinear polarization rotation occurring in optical media with Kerr nonlinearity, which allows to implement a nonlinear coin operator, one that depends on the state of the coin-qubit. We consider the space-time continuum limit of the evolution equation, which takes the form of a nonlinear Dirac equation. The analysis of this continuum limit allows us to gain some insight into the existence of different solitonic structures, such as bright and dark solitons. We illustrate several properties of these solitons with numerical calculations, including the effect on them of an additional phase simulating an external electric field.

Optical interferometry provides the most accurate spatial measurements. Here, we demonstrate, experimentally and theoretically, a massive improvement over existing techniques using nonlinear photorefractive wave-mixing and tabletop Mach-Zehnder interferometers, allowing displacement measurements with sub-nanometer accuracy.

We analyse a nonlinear QW model which can be experimentally implemented using the components of the electric field on an optical nonlinear Kerr medium, which translates into a rotation in the coin operator, with an angle which depends (in a nonlinear fashion) on the state of the walker. This simple dependence makes it easy to consider the space-time continuum limit of the evolution equation, which takes the form of a nonlinear Dirac equation. The analysis of this continuum limit allows us, under some approximations, to gain some insight into the nature of soliton structures, which is illustrated by our numerical calculations. These solitons are stable structures whose trajectories can be modulated by choosing the appropriate initial conditions. We have also studied the stability of solitons when they are subject to an additional phase that simulates an external electric field, and also explored if they are formed in higher dimensional spaces.

We theoretically consider photorefractive degenerate four-wave mixing oscillators and show that, for this particular system, the linear stability analysis technique leads to incorrect results. The reason for this astonishing failure lies in the unphysical predictions of the undepleted-pump approximation, which appear naturally during the linearization process of the full model. As a consequence, photorefractive four-wave mixing does not seem to permit a perturbative treatment that allows the derivation of mean-field models, and one is forced to use the full model in order to make sensible predictions.

We investigate theoretically the generation of nonlinear dissipative structures in optomechanical (OM) systems containing discrete arrays of mechanical resonators. We consider both hybrid models in which the optical system is a continuous multimode field, as it would happen in an OM cavity containing an array of micro-mirrors, and also fully discrete models in which each mechanical resonator interacts with a single optical mode, making contact with Ludwig and Marquardt (2013Phys. Rev. Lett.101, 073603). Also, we study the connections between both types of models and continuous OM models. While all three types of models merge naturally in the limit of a large number of densely distributed mechanical resonators, we show that the spatial localization and the pattern formation found in continuous OM models can still be observed for a small number of mechanical elements, even in the presence of finite-size effects, which we discuss. This opens new venues for experimental approaches to the subject.

According to the world view of macrorealism, the properties of a given system exist prior to and independent of measurement, which is incompatible with quantum mechanics. Leggett and Garg put forward a practical criterion capable of identifying violations of macrorealism, and so far experiments performed on microscopic and mesoscopic systems have always ruled out in favor of quantum mechanics. However, a macrorealist can always assign the cause of such violations to the perturbation that measurements effect on such small systems, and hence a definitive test would require using non-invasive measurements, preferably on macroscopic objects, where such measurements seem more plausible. However, the generation of truly macroscopic quantum superposition states capable of violating macrorealism remains a big challenge. In this work we propose a setup that makes use of measurements on the polarization of light, a property which has been extensively manipulated both in classical and quantum contexts, hence establishing the perfect link between the microscopic and macroscopic worlds. In particular, we use Leggett-Garg inequalities and the criterion of no-signaling in time to study the macrorealistic character of light polarization for different kinds of measurements, in particular with different degrees of coarse-graining. Our proposal is non-invasive for coherent input states by construction. We show for states with well defined photon number in two orthogonal polarization modes, that there always exists a way of making the measurement sufficiently coarse-grained so that a violation of macrorealism becomes arbitrarily small, while sufficiently sharp measurements can always lead to a significant violation.

We present and study a two-particle quantum walk on the line in which the two particles interact via a long-range Coulombian-like interaction. We obtain the spectrum of the system as well as study the type of molecules that form, attending to the bosonic or fermionic nature of the walkers. The usual loss of distinction between attractive and repulsive forces does not entirely apply in our model because of the long-range of the interaction.

Summary form only given. Degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) oscillators are phase-bistable devices. InDegenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) oscillators are phase-bistable devices. In such systems, two equivalent states, of equal intensities but opposite phases can be generated. When the cavity Fresnel number is large, different regions of the beam transverse section can have different phases, leading to phase patterns like phase fronts (or domain walls), i.e. ID structures separating regions with opposite phase that manifest as dark lines (as the phase jumps by π across the wall), phase domains, and phase solitons, among others.Here we demonstrate analytically and experimentally how a phase-bistable nonlinear optical cavity can be turned into a phase-tetra-stable system. The method consists in periodically modulating in time the relative phase between the two beams that pump a photorefractive DFWM oscillator. The technique is reminiscent of the rocking modulation [1,2] introduced by some of us to change phase-invariant systems into phase-bistable ones.

We describe a practice designed for the numerical study of the Lorenz model that is a central model in the physics of lasers. The didactical objectives pursued in this practice have a dual nature, considering both the introduction to the knowledge of a physical paradigm of deterministic chaos as the training for the use of certain computational tools for its characterization. The method used to achieve programming is finding solutions of the Lorenz model and systematically studying of their temporal evolution using a Mathematica program. In the academic context, the practice is designed to be included in the curriculum of the degree in physics and to facilitate adaptation to other matters in this area, such as quantum optics, fluids, mechanical vibrations, etc. We first study the steady states, and their linear stability, of the Lorenz model equations and then numerically study the different types of dynamic behavior. We pay special attention to the deterministic chaotic behavior and to the sequence of bifurcations leading from periodic to chaotic behavior (routes to chaos).

In the article we explain in detail how to build a photorefractive oscillator (PRO), which is a laserpumped nonlinear optical cavity containing a photorefractive crystal. The specific PRO whose construction we describe systematically, is based on a Fabry-Perot optical cavity working in a nondegenerate four wave-mixing configuration. This particular PRO has the property that the generated beam exhibits laser-like phase invariance and, as an application, we show how a suitably modulated injected beam converts the output field from phase-invariant into phase-bistable. While the emphasis is made on the making of the experimental device and on the way measurements are implemented, some introduction to the photorefractive effect as well as to the necessary concepts of nonlinear dynamics are also given, so that the article is reasonably self-contained.

Motivated by the increasing interest in the properties of multimode optomechanical devices, here we study a system in which a driven mode of a large-area optical cavity is despersively coupled to a deformable mechanical element. Two different models naturally appear in such scenario, for which we predict the formation of periodic patterns, localized structures (cavity solitons), and domain walls, among other complex nonlinear phenomena. Further, we propose a realistic design based on intracavity membranes where our models can be studied experimentally. Apart from its relevance to the field of nonlinear optics, the results put forward here are a necessary step towards understanding the quantum properties of optomechanical systems in the multimode regime of both the optical and mechanical degrees of freedom.

We theoretically consider the possibility of generating nonlinear transverse patterns in an optomechanical system in which the mechanical element is a microstructured oscillating end-mirrror consisting in an array of weakly-coupled micromirrors. While in the limit of large number of micro-mirrors we naturally recover the continuous model that we recently studied in [Ruiz-Rivas et al., Phys. Rev. A 93, 033850 (2015)], we pay special numerical attention to the opposite limit, showing that the structures predicted with the continuous model can be observed for a number of micro-mirrors as low as ten or less. This opens new venues for experimental approaches to the subject.

We study electric quantum walks in two dimensions considering Grover, Alternate, Hadamard, and DFT quantum walks. In the Grover walk the behaviour under an electric field is easy to summarize: when the field direction coincides with the x or y axes, it produces a transient trapping of the probability distribution along the direction of the field, while when it is directed along the diagonals, a perfect 2D trapping is frustrated. The analysis of the alternate walk helps to understand the behaviour of the Grover walk as both walks are partially equivalent; in particular, it helps to understand the role played by the existence of conical intersections in the dispersion relations, as we show that when these are removed a perfect 2D trapping can occur for suitable directions of the field. We complete our study with the electric DFT and Hadamard walks in 2D, showing that the latter can exhibit perfect 2D trapping.

In the article we explain in detail how to build a photorefractive oscillator (PRO), which is a laser pumped nonlinear optical cavity containing a photorefractive crystal. The specific PRO whose construction we describe systematically, is based on a Fabry-Perot optical cavity working in a non degenerate four wave-mixing configuration. This particular PRO has the property that the generated beam exhibits laser-like phase invariance and, as an application, we show how a suitably modulated injected beam converts the output field from phase-invariant into phase-bistable. While the emphasis is made on the making of the experimental device and on the way measurements are implemented, some introduction to the photorefractive effect as well as to the necessary concepts of nonlinear dynamics are also given, so that the article is reasonably self-contained.

We consider the two-dimensional alternate quantum walk on a cylinder. We concentrate on the study of the motion along the open dimension, in the spirit of looking at the closed coordinate as a small or ``hidden'' extra dimension. If one starts from localized initial conditions on the lattice, the dynamics of the quantum walk that is obtained after tracing out the small dimension shows the contribution of several components which can be understood from the study of the dispersion relations for this problem. In fact, these components originate from the contribution of the possible values of the quasimomentum in the closed dimension. In the continuous space-time limit, the different components manifest as a set of Dirac equations, with each quasimomentum providing the value of the corresponding mass. We briefly discuss the possible link of these ideas to the simulation of high-energy physical theories that include extra dimensions. Finally, entanglement between the coin and spatial degrees of freedom is studied, showing that the entanglement entropy clearly overcomes the value reached with only one spatial dimension.

We demonstrate experimentally that a broad area laser-like optical oscillator (a nondegenerate photorefractive oscillator) with structured injected signal displays two-phase patterns. The technique (G. J. de Valc\'arcel and K. Staliunas, Phys. Rev. Lett. (105), 054101 (2010)) consists in spatially modulating the injection, so that its phase alternates periodically between two opposite values, i.e. differing by pi

Nonlinear optical cavities are crucial both in classical and quantum optics; in particular, nowadays optical parametric oscillators are one of the most versatile and tunable sources of coherent light, as well as the sources of the highest quality quantum-correlated light in the continuous variable regime. Being nonlinear systems, they can be driven through critical points in which a solution ceases to exist in favour of a new one, and it is close to these points where quantum correlations are the strongest. The simplest description of such systems consists in writing the quantum fields as the classical part plus some quantum fluctuations, linearizing then the dynamical equations with respect to the latter; however, such an approach breaks down close to critical points, where it provides unphysical predictions such as infinite photon numbers. On the other hand, techniques going beyond the simple linear description become too complicated especially regarding the evaluation of two-time correlators, which are of major importance to compute observables outside the cavity. In this article we provide a regularized linear description of nonlinear cavities, that is, a linearization procedure yielding physical results, taking the degenerate optical parametric oscillator as the guiding example. The method, which we call self-consistent linearization, is shown to be equivalent to a general Gaussian ansatz for the state of the system, and we compare its predictions with those obtained with available exact (or quasi-exact) methods. Apart from its operational value, we believe that our work is valuable also from a fundamental point of view, especially in connection to the question of how far linearized or Gaussian theories can be pushed to describe nonlinear dissipative systems which have access to non-Gaussian states.

The discrete quantum walk in N dimensions is analyzed from the perspective of its dispersion relations. This allows understanding known properties, as well as designing new ones when spatially extended initial conditions are considered. This is done by deriving wave equations in the continuum, which are generically of the Schrödinger type, and allows devising interesting behavior, such as ballistic propagation without deformation, or the generation of almost flat probability distributions, which is corroborated numerically. There are however special points where the energy surfaces display intersections and, near them, the dynamics is entirely different. Applications to the twoand three-dimensional Grover walks are presented. 4 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. New Journal of Physics 15 (2013) 073041 1367-2630/13/073041+31$33.00 © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft

We propose an alternative definition of an N-dimensional coined quantum walk by generalizing a recent proposal [Di Franco et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 080502 (2011)]. This N-dimensional alternate quantum walk, AQW_N, in contrast with the standard definition of the N-dimensional quantum walk, QW_N, requires only a coin-qubit. We discuss the quantum diffusion properties of AQW_2 and AQW_3 by analyzing their dispersion relations that reveal, in particular, the existence of diabolical points. This allows us to highlight interesting similarities with other well known physical phenomena. We also demonstrate that AQW_3 generates genuine multipartite entanglement. Finally we discuss the implementability of AQW_N.