Squeezed state generation experiments in an optical cavity.

An optical cavity can be used to enhance the generation of squeezed states of the electromagnetic field. A cavity four- wave mixer will be described which has generated squeezed vacuum fluctuation noise. The mixing medium is the near-resonant polarization of a Na atomic beam, pumped by a dye laser. A number of noise sources which have been observed experimentally will be described. These noise sources limit the range of parameters that can result in squeezed noise at the quantum level. The results of experiments to date allow extrapolation of the generation mechanism to regions which may allow large squeezing effects for applications in interferometric precision measurements.