HOW TO REALIZE PHASE OPTIMIZED QUANTUM STATES

We analyze the problem of identifying a nonlinear optical process which changes a coherent state in such a way that the resulting state comes close to a phase optimized state. Due to the uncertainty relation this state must possess a specially broadened photon distribution what points to degenerate parametric amplification to provide such a broadening. Detailed numerical calculations show the feasibility of experimentally realizing approximate phase optimized states by optimized parametric amplification. Investigating also the photon and the phase probability distributions reveals the reasons why such optima exist.