Effects of squeezing on quantum nonlocality of superpositions of coherent states

We analyze effects of squeezing upon superpositions of coherent states (SCSs) and entangled coherent states for Bell-inequality tests. We find that external squeezing can always increase the degrees of Bell violations, if the squeezing direction is properly chosen, for the case of photon parity measurements. On the other hand, when photon on/off measurements are used, the squeezing operation can enhance the degree of Bell violations only for moderate values of amplitudes and squeezing. We point out that a significant improvement is required over currently available squeezed SCSs in order to directly demonstrate a Bell-inequality violation in a real experiment. ©2009 The American Physical Society