Twin beams, non linearity and walk-off in optical parametric oscillators

Abstract

We study the quantum properties of the spatially tilted macroscopic signal beams in the transverse pattern formed in a degenerate optical parametric oscillator above threshold. We show that walk-off leads to an imbalance in the intensities and fluctuations of these beams when nonlinear multimode interactions are effective. Still, quantum correlations between the two beams are preserved, so that their intensity difference exhibits sub-Poissonian statistics.