GENERATION OF SQUEEZED RADIATION FROM VACUUM IN THE COSMOS AND THE LABORATORY

The close analogy between the generation of gravitons from vacuum fluctuations of the gravitational field and the generation of photons from vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field is studied. Gravitons produced in the cosmos and photons produced in the laboratory are governed by similar physical principles and mathematical equations. Both are described by the so-called squeezed vacuum quantum states. Squeezed vacuum optical radiation has been generated experimentally by separating the pump light from the squeezed fluctuations in an interferometric geometry. It may prove possible that some predictions of gravitation theory can be modeled, or even tested, in the laboratory by quantum optics experiments.