Geometric Control of Cat States in High Harmonic Generation

Abstract:High-harmonic generation (HHG) provides a powerful platform for exploring the interaction between intense laser fields and matter on ultrafast timescales. Beyond its conventional description in terms of emitted radiation and electron dynamics, a fully quantum treatment of HHG reveals that the nonlinear light-matter interaction can modify the quantum state of the driving field itself, establishing correlations between the fundamental and harmonic modes. This perspective opens new possibilities for using HHG as a tool to engineer and control nonclassical states of light. In this work, we investigate the geometric properties of optical Schroedinger cat states generated in HHG via conditioning and post-selection. By analyzing the coherent-state displacements induced by different structured driving fields, we characterize the resulting phase-space evolution and the associated geometric phases of the generated quantum states. Particular emphasis is placed on how the polarization and spatial-mode structure of the driving light influence the geometry and evolution of displaced coherent states. Our results demonstrate that structured light offers a versatile means of controlling the geometric dynamics of HHG-generated cat states across the parameter space. Furthermore, we discuss the prospects for realizing genuinely topological optical cat states by exploiting more complex structured light configurations.

Optics (physics.optics); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)

arXiv:2608.20119 [physics.optics]

(or arXiv:2608.20119v1 [physics.optics] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.20119 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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