ABSTRACT
This chapter grants the reader a degree of awareness on the possibilities offered by the diverse experimental platforms to which the theory applies. Given the central role played by the optical embodiment of quantum continuous variables, an exception to this cursory treatment has been made for the quantisation of the electromagnetic field, and is carried out detail from the classical theory. The chapter also presents the opportunity to provide a full derivation of the input-output formalism and the associated quantum Langevin equations, which to our knowledge were never previously dealt with at a pedagogical level in the time domain. It discusses a bag of quantum optical tools, such as the rotating wave approximation, which, although featuring in a number of introductory quantum optics textbooks, find such wide application to deserve a place in any attempt at a self-contained treatment.
