Reply to ‘‘Comment on ‘Operational approach to the phase of a quantum field’ ’’

Abstract

In response to Hradil's Comment [preceding Comment, Phys. Rev. A 47, 4532 (1993)], we point out that his prescription for putting both the cosine and sine equal to zero when the data yield ${\mathit{n}}_{3}$=${\mathit{n}}_{4}$ and ${\mathit{n}}_{5}$=${\mathit{n}}_{6}$ can lead to meaningless results. Moreover, Hradil's Eq. (5) for obtaining ${\mathit{D}}^{2}$ from the measured variance leads to disagreement with experiment. Finally, it is possible to obtain a continuous spectrum of phases with our technique.