Howard Carmichael earned a PhD from the University of Waikato in 1977. He joined the faculty of the University of Arkansas in 1983 and moved to the University of Oregon in 1989, where he was Professor of Physics from 1991 to 2001. He is currently a member of the Physics Department at the University of Auckland where he holds the Dan Walls Chair in Theoretical Physics. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, the American Physical Society, and the Royal Society of New Zealand. Professor Carmichael was the recipient in 2003 of the Max Born Award of the Optical Society of America.

The Degenerate Parametric OscillatorI: Squeezed States.- The Degenerate Parametric OscillatorII: Phase-Space Analysisinthe Small-Noise Limit.- The PositiveP Representation.- The Degenerate Parametric OscillatorIII: Phase-Space Analysis Outside the Small-Noise Limit.- Cavity QED I: Simple Calculations.- Many Atoms in a Cavity: Macroscopic Theory.- Many Atoms in a Cavity II: Quantum Fluctuations in the Small-Noise Limit.- Cavity QED II: Quantum Fluctuations.- Quantum Trajectories I: Background and Interpretation.- Quantum Trajectories II: The Degenerate Parametric Oscillator.- Quantum Trajectories III: More Examples.

This second volume of Howard Carmichael's work continues the development of the methods used in quantum optics to treat open quantum systems and their fluctuations. Its early chapters build upon the phase-space methods introduced in Volume 1. Written on a level suitable for debut researchers or students in an advanced course in quantum optics, or a course in quantum mechanics or statistical physics that deals with open quantum systems.