Characterizing the nonclassicality of mesoscopic optical twin-beam states

We present a robust tool to analyze nonclassical properties of multimode twin-beam states in the mesoscopic photon-number domain. The measurements are performed by direct detection. The analysis exploits three different nonclassicality criteria for detected photons exhibiting complementary behavior in the explored intensity regime. Joint signal-idler photon-number distributions and quasidistributions of integrated intensities are determined and compared with the corresponding distributions of detected photons. Experimental conditions optimal for nonclassical properties of twin-beam states are identified.