Coherent states in projected Hilbert spaces

Abstract: Coherent states in a projected Hilbert space have many useful properties. When there are conserved quantities, a representation of the entire Hilbert space is not necessary. The same issue arises when conditional observations are made with post-selected measurement results. In these cases, only a part of the Hilbert space needs to be represented, and one can define this restriction by way of a projection operator. Here coherent state bases and normally-ordered phase-space representations are introduced for treating such projected Hilbert spaces, including existence theorems and dynamical equations. These techniques are very useful in studying novel optical or microwave integrated photonic quantum technologies, such as boson sampling or Josephson quantum computers. In these cases states become strongly restricted due to inputs, nonlinearities or conditional measurements. This paper focuses on coherent phase states, which have especially simple properties. Practical applications are reported on calculating recurrences in anharmonic oscillators, the effects of arbitrary phase-noise on Schrodinger cat fringe visibility, and on boson sampling interferometry for large numbers of modes.