Exploring six modes of an optical parametric oscillator

We measure the complete quantum state for six modes of the electromagnetic field produced by an optical parametric oscillator. The investigation involves the sideband of the intense pump, signal, and idler fields generated by stimulated parametric downconversion inside a triply resonant optical resonator. We develop a theoretical model to successfully interpret the experimental results. The model takes into account the coupling of the field modes to the phonon bath of the nonlinear crystal, clearly showing the roles of different physical effects in shaping the structure of the quantum correlations between the six optical modes.