DISCRETE SUPERPOSITIONS OF COHERENT STATES AND PHASE PROPERTIES OF THE M-PHOTON ANHARMONIC-OSCILLATOR

The formation of discrete superpositions of coherent states via the unitary evolution of the m-photon anharmonic oscillator is studied. Exact analytical formulae for the superposition coefficients are obtained. It is shown that, in contrast to the two-photon anharmonic oscillator, for m > 2 the superposition components enter the superposition with different amplitudes. The Pegg-Barnett phase formalism is used to calculate the phase distributions for the resulting states and to visualize their symmetry.