This award supports research in the area of the foundations of fundamental quantum optics and quantum mechanics as explored through the technique of quantum state reconstruction. The goal of the project is to advance the state of the art in the preparation and measurement of quantum states of light beyond single modes of the optical field to the next level of complexity, multimode fields. This will be done using the concept of balanced homodyne detection. The outcome of this work in terms of techniques for measurement of optical correlations and statistics will have a broad impact in the interpretation of results from other areas such as atom interferometry, quantum computing, and molecular vibrational-state engineering
