Fundamentals of Quantum Optics (Dover Books on Physics) Illustrated Edition

Anyone looking to get involved in the world of Quantum Optics should add this book to his or her library. It is well written, easy to follow along, and gives you a view of a very deep and intense world of science. A must have book.

Every couple of pages there is a page that appears to have not printed properly and it makes the page unreadable and/or nonsensical

E.C.G. Sudarshan passed away May 13, 2018. Professor Sudarshan had recently retired from University of Texas, Austin.A student interested in Sudarshan's legacy should avail themselves of his Lecture Notes and Papers, as they are posted (as of 9/7/18) on the academic website of UT Austin. You will there find his 1963 Bern Lectures on Quantum Optics. The preface to this book states: "the present text derives much of its spirit and philosophy from a series of lectures and associated lecture notes presented by Sudarshan in the Fall of 1963 at the University of Bern, Switzerland."Thus, before study of this book, avail yourself of those notes ! A review of this book says: "mathematical questions suggested by problems in quantum optics." (Science, Volume 162, December 1968). That phrase encapsulates much regarding the content of this monograph. Keep that in mind, as this will be a challenging book. Happily, utilization of Heaviside Units (not MKS). That being kept in mind, there is much of interest herein:(1) First chapter concludes with an interesting construction, which utilizes equation #1-44, read: "to develop a far-field approximation especially suitable for the determination of stellar diameters." (page 14). As optics books tend to do, the introduction in chapter one describes the two-slit interference experiment.(2) The equation expressing the relationship between intensity and probability of photo-emission is written, from there, Poisson distribution. Do you recall partial fraction expansion ? Practice it herein (page 28, equation #2-44).(3) Semiclassical considerations, next. A brief review of intensity interferometry (Hanbury-Brown-Twiss) to conclude.(4) The motivation for chapter four: "to give a glimpse at a variety of generic problems and indicate how one would formulate equations leading to their solutions." (page 47). Functional derivatives introduced as "weight functions associated with directional derivatives." (page 53). That is a rather fascinating approach.Random walk and brownian motion briefly alluded to (page 57). This chapter is a highlight.(5) Chapter Five, here we interpret "our previous classical results in a quantum context." What do we find ? An excellent synopsis of the axiomatic basis of quantum mechanics: Hilbert space, linear operators, statistical states, polarization of light beam, harmonic oscillator. This spans all of twenty-two pages, yet, ever so enlightening.(6) What we learned in chapter five serves us in chapter six, Electrodynamics. The formalism, nonrelativistic:"since we are considering the radiation field in the presence of prescribed external sources, we have already destroyed Lorentz invariance." (page 89). This is a well-written exposition. Recall: test functions, Green's functions, transforms.(7) Next, Coherent- State representation of the electromagnetic field. As is to be expected, a highlight of the text.Read: "the coherent states span the Hilbert space" and "there must be linear dependencies among the coherent states." Details within. This chapter spans fifty-pages, paying adequate attention to questions of convergence of infinite products and sums (page 137).(8) Next, phenomenology: description of counting devices. Read: "a photon is absorbed from the radiation field and the state of the detection system changes accordingly." Recall: Taylor series expansions, generating functions, Schwarz inequality, distributions (page 180). A delightful highlight: distributions.(9) Motivation, next: "the overwhelming majority of macroscopic fields that are naturally produced are thermal-like in their properties." This analysis occupies chapter nine. Recall: central limit theorem.We are reminded that a quantum analogue holds. A number of laser models are approached.(10) Concluding chapter, another pass at intensity correlations and intensity interferometers (this was first described in chapter three). Read: "we see that spatial correlations as well as temporal correlations may be observed in intensity phenomena." (page 252). A useful, annotated fifteen-page bibliography completes the monograph.(11) Concluding my review: This is a rather advanced, mathematically inclined, exposition. I have studied from five textbooks which include the words 'quantum optics' in their title: Harry Paul's Introduction (2004), Meystre and Sargent (1999, third edition), Walls and Milburn (1994), Agarwal (2013) and Grynberg, et. al. (2010).Additionally, Selected Reprints in Quantum and Statistical Aspects of Light, published by American Association of Physics Teachers. The book of Klauder and Sudarshan is unlike any of those textbooks.Therefore, it is highly recommended.

Five stars. The authors wrote this book from his heart of knowledge.

Every roughly 5-10 pages has a printing error and cannot be read, like those pictured. The print is very light and seems like it was printed over itself from different positions multiple times.