Generation of the reciprocal-binomial state

We present an experimentally feasible scheme to generate in a cavity the recently suggested reciprocal-binomial state of the radiation field. For a running wave, this state would play the role of a reference field for measuring the quantum optical phase probability distribution by projection synthesis as proposed by Barnett and Pegg [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76 (1996) 4148]. The same scheme can also be used to generate the binomial and the negative binomial states. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.