Was Glauber's work controversial or misunderstood?
It is important not to confuse different mathematical representations. The Glauber-Sudarshan P representation, while extremely useful, can sometimes present challenges if interpreted too literally as a classical probability distribution, especially for states that are not classical. This can lead to apparent paradoxes if one is not careful about its definition and application within the quantum mechanical formalism. However, the underlying theory of coherence itself, which quantifies correlations in light fields, is now a standard and indispensable tool. The essential point is that it is a mathematical tool for calculating quantum mechanical observables, not a direct pictorial representation of quantum reality that bypasses the quantum formalism.
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