PHOTON CHOPPING - NEW WAY TO MEASURE THE QUANTUM STATE OF LIGHT

We propose the use of a balanced 2N-port as a technique to measure the pure quantum state of a single-mode light field. In our scheme the co incidence signals of simple, realistic photodetectors are recorded at the output of the 2N-port. We show that applying different arrangement s both the modulus and the phase of the coefficients in a finite super position state can be measured. In particular, the photon statistics c an be so measured with currently available devices.