Essential Quantum Optics: From Quantum Measurements to Black Holes

This is an elegant book about the quantum field theory of light.It covers a wide range of interesting topics from quantum vacuum toentanglement to black-holes. It is written by a theoreticalexpert who obviously appreciates and understands experimental physics.The prose are elegant and cleverly avoid bulking up the book withequations.This book is not an easy book to read for the subject at handis not easy. But, if you work through it, you will be quicklyrewarded with understanding.The book is also not a first book in quantum mechanics; to readthis book you should already have something at the level of Ramamurti Shankar.The first half of that book should do, certainly quantum oscillators chapter.The book is of course not perfect and improvement in exposition in someplaces can make a faster reading but even the struggle, if you have time,is helpful.Get this book for your first reading on quantum field theory of light.It is like a key to many doors.

The book presents equations copied from other books of QFT and Quantum Optics with out understanding and with no critiquethe author seems to believe that nothing in print may be wrong.The book does not comprehend the difference between mathematical operators and physical fields"explanations" are piled up without space into one overcrowded paragraphsDetails are missing consistentlyif you wish to know what is k in some formula you have to go back pages and you will be lucky to find it.the refraction index is maybe relative refractive index, maybe not.And black holes are a variation on photons?

I thought this book was amazing. It is written in a very engaging style and the mathematics is handled in a supremely intuitive and elegant way. For my personal tastes the book covers the most exciting and interesting topics in quantum optics, having first built up the basics. The last chapter on the quantum optics of event horizons is presumably unique in an undergraduate/beginning graduate textbook. I also appreciated some of the basic yet fundamental issues treated by the author that I haven't found such a clear discussion of before, such as how you go from quantum field theory to the usual quantum optical description. The reader gets the sense of being in the presence of a real authority. Finally, the book is short which is a real bonus for the time-strapped undergraduate reader (or, indeed, professor) in my opinion. I am not currently teaching a quantum optics course, but if/when I do I would base it on this book. A gem.

Having done physics professionally for 15 years, I finally bought my first book on quantum optics. Actually very clearly written and also the operator formalism is presented well. Covers a whole bunch of phenomena related to quantized light and expanded notably the way I now consider quantized light.