EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY FOR QUANTUM STATE MEASUREMENT IN MATTER

Emission tomography provides a method for the characterization of quan tum states of those degrees of freedom of material quantum systems tha t are coupled to electronic states of the system. In such systems, the time-dependent fluorescence spectrum contains complete information ab out the non-electronic degree of freedom. Phase-space or, in certain c ases, density matrix representations of the state can be reconstructed from the spectrum using standard methods of computer-assisted tomogra phy or linear algebra. The principles and implementation of this proce dure are described in detail and applied to the specific example of th e reconstruction of the quantum state of the vibrational mode of a dia tomic molecule excited into a non-stationary wavepacket state.