ABSTRACT
As soon as it was introduced, the Pegg-Barnett phase formalismwas applied to the analysis of quantum phase in a variety of situations. We review the seminal studies in this chapter. We beginwith the analyses of special classes of stateswhose phase properties are optimised in some way, for example, by having the minimum variance of the phase angle subject to various constraints. We then look at the connection between the phase observable and amplitude quadrature observables of an optical field. We end with the dynamics of the phase of a single-mode optical field under diffusive and non-diffusive evolution. These studies paved the way for the application of the new formalism to the theoretical analysis of quantum phase in general.
