Seventy five years ago, three remarkable papers by Schr¨ odinger, Kennard and Darwin were published. They were devoted to the evolution of Gaussian wave packets for an oscillator, a free particle and a particle moving in uniform constant electric and magnetic fields. From the contemporary point of view, these packets can be considered as prototypes of the coherent and squeezed states, which are, in a sense, the cornerstones of modern quantum optics. Moreover, these states are frequently used in many other areas, from solid state physics to cosmology. This paper gives a review of studies performed in the field of so-called ‘nonclassical states’ (squeezed states are their simplest representatives) over the past seventy five years, both in quantum optics and in other branches of quantum physics. My starting point is to elucidate who introduced different concepts, notions and terms, when, and what were the initial motivations of the authors. Many new references have been found which enlarge the ‘standard citation package’ used by some authors, recovering many undeservedly forgotten (or unnoticed) papers and names. Since it is practically impossible to cite several thousand publications, I have tried to include mainly references to papers introducing new types of quantum states and studying their properties, omitting many publications devoted to applications and to the methods of generation and experimental schemes, which can be found in other well known reviews. I also mainly concentrate on the initial period, which terminated approximately at the border between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, when several fundamental experiments on the generation of squeezed states were performed and the first conferences devoted to squeezed and ‘nonclassical’ states commenced. The 1990s are described in a more ‘squeezed’ manner: I have confined myself to references to papers where some new concepts have been introduced, and to the most recent reviews or papers with extensive bibliographical lists.

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'Nonclassical' states in quantum optics: a 'squeezed' review of the first 75 years

This survey is an overview of some of the better known quantization techniques (for systems with finite numbers of degrees-of-freedom) including in particular canonical quantization and the related Dirac scheme, introduced in the early days of quantum mechanics, Segal and Borel quantizations, geometric quantization, various ramifications of deformation quantization, Berezin and Berezin–Toeplitz quantizations, prime quantization and coherent state quantization. We have attempted to give an account sufficiently in depth to convey the general picture, as well as to indicate the mutual relationships between various methods, their relative successes and shortcomings, mentioning also open problems in the area. Finally, even for approaches for which lack of space or expertise prevented us from treating them to the extent they would deserve, we have tried to provide ample references to the existing literature on the subject. In all cases, we have made an effort to keep the discussion accessible both to physicists and to mathematicians, including non-specialists in the field.

Quantization methods: a guide for physicists and analysts

Wavelets on the 2-sphere: A group-theoretical approach

The relationship between classical and quantum theory is of central importance to the philosophy of physics, and any interpretation of quantum mechanics has to clarify it. Our discussion of this relationship is partly historical and conceptual, but mostly technical and mathematically rigorous, including over 500 references. For example, we sketch how certain intuitive ideas of the founders of quantum theory have fared in the light of current mathematical knowledge. One such idea that has certainly stood the test of time is Heisenberg's `quantum-theoretical Umdeutung (reinterpretation) of classical observables', which lies at the basis of quantization theory. Similarly, Bohr's correspondence principle (in somewhat revised form) and Schroedinger's wave packets (or coherent states) continue to be of great importance in understanding classical behaviour from quantum mechanics. On the other hand, no consensus has been reached on the Copenhagen Interpretation, but in view of the parodies of it one typically finds in the literature we describe it in detail. On the assumption that quantum mechanics is universal and complete, we discuss three ways in which classical physics has so far been believed to emerge from quantum physics, namely in the limit h -> 0 of small Planck's constant (in a finite system), in the limit N goes to infinity of a large system with $N$ degrees of freedom (at fixed h), and through decoherence and consistent histories. The first limit is closely related to modern quantization theory and microlocal analysis, whereas the second involves methods of C*-algebras and the concepts of superselection sectors and macroscopic observables. In these limits, the classical world does not emerge as a sharply defined objective reality, but rather as an approximate appearance relative to certain ``classical" states and observables. Decoherence subsequently clarifies the role of such states, in that they are ``einselected", i.e. robust against coupling to the environment. Furthermore, the nature of classical observables is elucidated by the fact that they typically define (approximately) consistent sets of histories. This combination of ideas and techniques does not quite resolve the measurement problem, but it does make the point that classicality results from the elimination of certain states and observables from quantum theory. Thus the classical world is not created by observation (as Heisenberg once claimed), but rather by the lack of it.

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Between classical and quantum

Two-dimensional directional wavelets and the scale-angle representation

We present a survey of the theory of coherent states (CS); and some of their generalizations, with emphasis on the mathematical structure, rather than on physical applications. Starting from the standard theory of CS over Lie groups, we develop a general formalism, in which CS are associated to group representations which are square integrable over a homogeneous space. A further step allows us to dispense with the group context altogether, and thus obtain the so-called reproducing triples and continuous frames introduced in some earlier work. We discuss in detail a number of concrete examples, namely semisimple Lie groups, the relativity groups and various types of wavelets. Finally we turn to some physical applications, centering on quantum measurement and the quantization/dequantization problem, that is, the transition from the classical to the quantum level and vice versa.

Ua. Mueller

Papers

Coherent states and their generalizations - A mathematical overview