Squeezed states of light pulses in the presence of a self-effect in an inertial nonlinear medium

A systematic theory of the formation of squeezed states during the propagat ion of coherent light pulses in a medium with an inertial Kerr nonlinearity is developed. It is established that the region of the spectrum where the quadrature fluctuations are weaker than the shot noise depends on both the relaxation time of the nonlinearity and the magnitude of the nonlinear phas e shift. It is also shown that the frequency at which suppression of the fl uctuations is greatest can be controlled by adjusting the phase of the puls e. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-3640(99)00407-7].