This volume contains notes based on the lectures delivered at the fourth New Zealand Symposium in Laser Physics, held at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, February 10-15, 1986. At this meeting, about 80 physicists work ing in many parts of the world met to discuss topics of current interest in contemporary laser physics and quantum optics. These symposia, which have been held triennially since 1977, have evolved into an important meet ing ground for experimentalists and theoreticians working in a very rapidly developing field. As the format has evolved, the number of participants, in cluding the number from overseas, has grown steadily, and this year a poster session was included for the first time, enabling a far greater range of topics to be discussed than was possible in the limited lecture time available. At this meeting the major interest of the participants concerned the the oretical investigation of squeezed states of the radiation field and the very recently reported experimental observations of such states. Other related ar eas of work reported here include bistability and chaotic behaviour of optical systems, the quantum theory of measurements, optical tests of general rel ativity, and the current technological limitations governing the stabilization of lasers. The editors would like to thank the participants for providing detailed notes for publication shortly after the meeting, and the various organisa tions that have provided financial support.

This volume presents the written versions of papers that were delivered at the Third Rochester Conference on Coherence and Quantum Optics, held on the campus of the University of Rochester during the three days of June 21-23, 1972. The Conference was a sequel to two earlier meetings devoted to the same field of modern physics, that were also held in Rochester in 1960 and in 1966. The scope of the Conference was largely confined to basic pro blems in the general area of optical coherence and quantum optics, and excluded engineering applications that are well covered by other meetings. Approximately 250 scientists from 9 countries participated, most of whom are active workers in the field. Alto gether 72 papers, including 26 invited papers, were presented in 17 sessions. The papers dealt mainly with the subjects of resonant pulse propagation, lasers, quantum electrodynamics and alternative theories, optical coherence, coherence effects in spontaneous emis sion, light scattering, optical correlation and fluctuation measure ments, coherent light interactions and quantum noise. The program was organized by a committee consisting of N. Bloembergen (Harvard University) J. H. Eberly (University of Rochester) E. L. Hahn (University of California at Berkeley) H. Haken (University of Stuttgart, Germany) M. Lax (City College of New York) B. J. Thompson (University of Rochester) L. Mandel (University of Rochester) }J'oint secretaries E.

Quantum Optics gives a comprehensive coverage of developments in quantum optics over the past twenty years. In the early chapters the formalism of quantum optics is elucidated and the main techniques are introduced. These are applied in the later chapters to problems such as squeezed states of light, resonance fluorescence, laser theory, quantum theory of four-wave mixing, quantum non-demolition measurements, Bell's inequalities, and atom optics. Experimental results are used to illustrate the theory throughout. This yields the most comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of experiment and theory in quantum optics in any textbook.

The Seventh Rochester Conference on Coherence and Quantum Optics was held on the campus of the University of Rochester during the four-day period June 7 - 10, 1996. More than 280 scientists from 33 countries participated. This book contains the Proceedings of the meeting. This Conference differed from the previous six in the series in having only a limited number of oral presentations, in order to avoid too many parallel sessions. Another new feature was the introduction of tutorial lectures. Most contributed papers were presented in poster sessions. The Conference was sponsored by the American Physical Society, by the Optical Society of America, by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and by the University of Rochester. We wish to express our appreciation to these organizations for their support and we especially extend our thanks to the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics for providing financial assistance to a number of speakers from Third World countries, to enable them to take part in the meeting.