Decoherence of the Laser Field in Energy Steady-State Operation

Abstract

The rate at which pure initial states satisfying the detailed balance condition on the photon number states deteriorate into mixtures in the decoherence process is computed for a laser field above threshold in the Scully-Lamb laser model. In steady-state laser operation, the field state suggested by Scully and Lamb is shown to be the least increase of the error area in the complex amplitude plane, thus becoming the most stable field state among the squeezed states characterized by the phase order parameter Δ.