The continuous transition from a low resolution quantum nondemolition
measurement of light field intensity to a precise measurement of photon number
is described using a generalized measurement postulate. In the intermediate
regime, quantization appears as a weak modulation of measurement probability.
In this regime, the measurement result is strongly correlated with the amount
of phase decoherence introduced by the measurement interaction. In particular,
the accidental observation of half integer photon numbers preserves phase
coherence in the light field, while the accidental observation of quantized
values increases decoherence. The quantum mechanical nature of this correlation
is discussed and the implications for the general interpretation of
quantization are considered.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, final version to be published in Phys. Rev. A,
Clarifications of the nature of the measurement result and the noise added in
section I
