Abstract
Abstract: High harmonic generation (HHG) has been the workhorse of attosecond science and many other applications. Until recently, both the driving and emitted fields were treated satisfactorily within a semiclassical framework. Their large photon numbers seemed to justify neglecting the quantum properties of the electromagnetic field. This classical picture is now being revised. I will discuss this development, focusing on the generation of HHG by bright squeezed vacuum (BSV). In particular, I will present the fundamentals of HHG driven by BSV as well as the first gas-phase HHG experiment that enabled the observation of attosecond-scale quantum fluctuations of both light and matter.
[1] Matan Even Tzur, Michael Birk, Alexey Gorlach, Michael Krueger, Ido Kaminer and Oren Cohen, Photon-statistics force in ultrafast electron dynamics. Nature Photonics 17, 501 (2023)
[2] A. Gorlach, M. Even Tzur, M. Birk, M. Krüger, N. Rivera, O. Cohen, I. Kaminer, High-harmonic generation driven by quantum light. Nature Physics 19, 1689 (2023)
[3] Matan Even Tzur, Chen Mor, Noa Yaffe, Michael Birk, Andrei Rasputnyi, Omer Kneller, Ido Nisim, Ido Kaminer, Maria Chekhova, Michael Krueger, Misha Ivanov, Nirit Dudovich, Oren Cohen, Attosecond-resolved quantum fluctuations of light and matter. arXiv:2511.18362 (2025)
Anyone interested is welcome to attend.