The quantum-classical transition in thermally seeded parametric downconversion

We address the pair of conjugated field modes obtained from parametricdownconversion as a convenient system to analyze the quantum-classical transition in the continuous variable regime. We explicitly evaluate intensity correlations, negativity and entanglement for the system in a thermal state and show that a hierarchy of nonclassicality thresholds naturally emerges in terms of thermal and downconversion photon number. We show that the transition from quantum to classical regime may be tuned by controlling the intensities of the seeds and detected by intensity measurements. Besides, we show that the thresholds are not affected by losses, which only modify the amount of nonclassicality. The multimode case is also analyzed in some detail. PACS numbers: 42.50.Dv, 03.67.Mn ‡ [email protected] The quantum-classical transition in thermally seeded PDC 2