Propagation of intense squeezed vacuum light in non-linear media

Abstract: Recent developments in quantum light engineering have enabled the use of infrared bright squeezed vacuum (BSV) femtosecond pulses in highly nonlinear optics, particularly strong-field physics and high-harmonic generation. However, theoretical studies were focused on interactions with single-atoms only, neglecting that under realistic conditions light propagates through the media. This raises two key questions: How does BSV propagates in strongly light-driven nonlinear media, and under what conditions it can generate observable nonlinear signals? We address these questions by introducing a fully quantized framework that accounts for the propagation in gas media using high-harmonic generation as a nonlinear observable. We found that the infrared photon losses, atomic ground-state depletion and atomic ionization, induce decoherence effects which significantly limit the propagation length in the medium, and reduce the harmonic yield by more than two orders of magnitude compared to that produced by coherent laser light. Nevertheless, we establish the conditions under which BSV generated harmonics can be detected. Our results lay the foundation for future studies of BSV in strong-field physics, nonlinear optics, and ultrafast science, and establish a basis for exploring its propagation in all states of matter.