Deterministic and Nondestructively Verifiable Preparation of Photon Number States

An experimentally viable approach for preparing arbitrary photon number states of a cavity mode using continuous measurement and real-time quantum feedback is presented. The procedure passively monitors the number state actually achieved in each feedback-stabilized measurement trajectory, thus providing nondestructively verifiable photon generation. The feasibility of a possible cavity QED implementation in the many-atom, good-cavity-coupling regime is analyzed.