Tailor - made few - photon state generation from squeezed atoms

This paper develops an idea of manipulating the squeezed atom state to generate a few-photon state whose phase or photon-number fluctuations are prescribed at our disposal. The squeezed atom state is a collective atomic state whose quantum fluctuations in population difference or collective dipole are smaller than those of the coherent atom state. It is shown that the squeezed atom state can be generated by the interaction of atoms with a coherent state of the electromagnetic field, and that it can be used as a tunable source of squeezed radiation. A variety of squeezed states including the photonnumber squeezed state and the phase squeezed state can be produced by manipulating the atomic state. This is owing to the fact that quantumstatistical information of the atomic state is faithfully transferred to that of the photon state. Possible experimental situations to implement our theory are discussed. 42.50.Dv, 03.65.Bz, 42.50.Gy, 42.50.Lc Typeset using REVTEX 1