The first All-Union Seminar on Quantum Optics (SQO) was from May 19 to 22, 1986, in Minsk at the Institute of Physics. This seminar was organized and held in view of the actuality of the problems of quantum optics - the part of optics dealing with electromagnetic fields and their interactions with matter, in which the quantum nature of light is manifested - proposed for discussion.

Indeed, the seminar coincided with the appearance of the first experimental works on the generation of squeezed states of optical fields [Slusher (1985), Shelby (1986), Kimble (1986)] and works by Yamamoto (1986) with a demonstration of the sub-Poissonian distribution of photoelectrons in the detection of radiation of a semiconductor laser with a feedback circuit. It was the questions of producing sub-Poissonian and squeezed light that were the subject of three meetings of the section "Quantum Statistics of Nonlinear Processes."

Review reports by S.Ya. Kilin (Institute of Physics of the Belarussian Academy of Sciences, IP BAS), "Quantum Statistics of Resonant Light Scattering and Propagation Effects," in which squeezing phenomena in four-wave scattering were considered; A.S. Troshin (Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute, LSPI), "Antibunching and Sub-Poissonian Statistics of Photons, Squeezed States: Recent Advances and Forecasts;" Yu.M. Golubev and V.R. Gorbachev (Leningrad State University, LSU), "Formation of Sub-Poissonian Statistics of Light and Squeezed States in Parametric Interaction with a Medium;" and Yu.M.Golubev and I.V. Sokolov (LSU), "Quantum Mechanical Optical Oscillator with Sub-Poissonian Statistics" were delivered. A number of reports were devoted to the problem of manifestation of photon antibunching in the spectrum of intensity fluctuations [L.I. Plimak and E.S. Polzik (LSU) and A.S. Troshin and N.I. Katanaev (LSPI)].

The theory of amplification of light with sub-Poissonian statistics was the subject of a report by M.I. Kolobov and I.V. Sokolov (LSU). Another problem discussed at SQO-I was that of the nonlinearity and non-Markov behaviour of relaxation associated with the fact that the response of relaxation perturbations is not instantaneous.

First experimental evidence of deviations from predictions of the Bloch theory of relaxation and the relaxation dynamics obtained in the works by De Voe and Brewer (1983) and other special features of relaxation processes, including those in strong fields, frequency- phase-correlated, and multimode ones became the subject of discussion of the reports by P.A. Apanasevich, S.Ya. Kilin and A.P.Nizovtsev (IP BAS), Yu.A. Ponomarev (Institute of Optics of the Atmosphere, Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, IOA SD AS USSR), E.G. Pestov (Lebedev Physical Institute, FIAN), S.l. Yakovlenko and A.G. Zhidkov (Institute of General Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, IGF AS USSR), S.G. Przhibel'skii and N.A.Chigir' (Vavilov State Optical Institute, SOI), E.E. Fradkin (LSU), S.K. Potapov (Saratov State University, SSU), V.l. Kruglov (IP BAS), V.A. Savva (IP BAS), and V.S. Kuz'min and A.R Saiko (Institute of Solid State and Semiconductor Physics of the Belarussian Academy of Sciences, ISSSP BAS).

These reports formed the basis for a topical issue of Journal of Applied Spectroscopy (Zh. Prikl. Spektr., 1987, vol. 47, no. 6).