Abstract

We study the propagation of quantum states of light in separable longitudinally inhomogeneous waveguides based on the momentum operator. This is carried out in the optical field-strength space $\mathcal{E}$ by means of the optical propagator obtained by the path integral formalism. We analyze virtual squeezing appearing in these media and its effect on quantum states of light, that is, Gouy’s quantum phases depending on both the longitudinal inhomogeneity and the quantum state. In addition, it is justified that these media perform unitary Infeld–Plebanski transformations, thus avoiding real squeezing. Likewise, WKB and exact results are presented for the propagation of coherent and squeezed states of light and, additionally, Bessel–Gauss quantum states of light propagating in a power-law parametric family of longitudinally inhomogeneous waveguides are studied in detail.

© 2015 Optical Society of America

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