High-order correlations and ultrafast Wigner negativities in bright-squeezed-vacuum-driven high-harmonic generation
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: High-harmonic generation (HHG) is a prototypical strong-field process in which intense light drives matter to emit radiation at integer multiples of the driving frequency. Extending HHG into the quantum-optical regime offers new opportunities to probe and control strongly nonlinear light-matter interactions using nonclassical states of light. Yet describing this regime requires a fully quantum treatment of the correlated electron-photon dynamics, which becomes computationally challenging for broadband, strongly squeezed fields. Here we solve the quantum-electrodynamical dynamics of a two-level system driven by bright squeezed vacuum in a converged multimode Hilbert space. Both the driving field and emitted harmonics are fully quantized, with the light-matter interaction treated nonperturbatively. This enables direct access to the multimode quantum state and its higher-order correlations beyond semiclassical sampling or perturbative descriptions. We show that squeezed-vacuum driving produces harmonic emission with qualitatively distinct second- and third-order photon correlations compared with coherent excitation. Moreover, back-action from the driven emitter strongly reshapes the incident squeezed field, generating pronounced Wigner-function negativities that evolve on attosecond timescales. Our results establish a fully quantum framework for broadband strong-field dynamics with squeezed light and provide a route to predicting and interpreting quantum-HHG experiments and their extension to more complex emitters.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: International Max Planck Research School for Environmental, Cellular and Molecular Microbiology, Flatiron Health, European Commission, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Yükseköğretim Kurulu, Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, National Science and Technology Major Project, Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education of Israel, National Key Research and Development Program of China
OpenAlex ID: W7213602862