An atom, coupled linearly to an environment, is considered in a harmonic approximation in thermal equilibrium inside a cavity. The environment is modeled by an infinite set of harmonic oscillators. We employ the notion of dressed states to investigate the time evolution of the atom initially in the first excited level. In a very large cavity (free space) for a long elapsed time, the atom decays and the value of its occupation number is the physically expected one at a given temperature. For a small cavity the excited atom never completely decays and the stability rate depends on temperature.
We consider the radiation from a system of
N identical two-level atoms coupled to a continuum of quantized em modes, and possibly, to an external driving field near resonance. The atoms can be distributed over a region large in comparison to the resonant wavelength, but smaller than the spontaneous pulse length. Radiation rates and correlation functions are expressed in terms of expectation values of time-dependent atomic operators, which are shown to satisfy coupled first-order differential equations involving similar atomic operators and the initial radiation operators. The corresponding equations for the expectation values simplify considerably if no driving field is present. Similar results are derived for a model in which each atom is replaced by a harmonic oscillator.
We study the dynamics of a system consisting of a two-level atom and a quantum oscillator coupled by the vacuum radiation field. The oscillator and the atom are assumed to have the same resonance frequency. In contrast to the two-atom or two-oscillator case, the atom-oscillator system leads to an unclosed hierarchy of equations for the operators that determine the radiation pattern emitted by the atom-oscillator system. Instead of using the operator equations, we formulate the problem in terms of density-matrix equations which can be solved once the initial conditions are specified. As an example, we looked at the radiation pattern, the decay dynamics, and the spectrum for an initial condition in which the oscillator is in its
n=1 state and the atom is in its excited state. Dressed states (dressed by the static interaction between the atom and oscillator) prove to be especially useful for interpreting the results and comparing them with the two-atom and two-oscillator systems. All calculations are carried out using the resonance or rotating-wave approximation. The relationship of our work to damped Jaynes-Cummings models is noted.
We consider a system consisting of a particle in the harmonic approximation, having frequency
ωˉ, coupled to a scalar field inside a spherical reflecting cavity of diameter
L. By introducing {\it dressed} coordinates we define {\it dressed} states which allow a non-perturbative unified description of the radiation process, for weak and strong coupling regimes. We perform a study of the energy distribution in a small cavity, with the initial condition that the particle is in the first excited state. In the {\it weak} coupling regime, we conclude for the quasi-stability of the excited particle. For instance, for a frequency
ωˉ of the order
ωˉ∼4.00×1014/s (in the visible red), starting from the initial condition that the particle is in the first excited level, we find that for a cavity with diameter
L∼1.0×10−6m, the probability that the particle be at any time still in the first excited level, will be of the order of 97%. For appropriate cavity dimensions, which are of the same order of those ensuring stability for weak coupling, we ensure for strong coupling the complete decay of the particle to the ground state in a small ellapsed time. Also we consider briefly the effects of a quartic interaction up to first order in the interaction parameter
λ. We obtain for a large cavity an explicit
λ-dependent expression for the particle radiation process. This formula is obtained in terms of the corresponding exact expression for the linear case and we conclude for the enhancement of the particle decay induced by the quartic interaction.
The excitation and decay probabilities for resonance scattering of radiation from an atom with two coupled excited states in an external static field are calculated as a function of time and frequency. Various oscillatory terms are found in the probabilities. These oscillations depend on the frequency of radiation, the external coupling and the energy difference between the excited states. Two special cases are investigated in detail. In the first case where one of the excited states does not decay a 'hole' appears in the emission line at a frequency equal to the frequency difference between the ground state and the unperturbed non-decaying excited state. In the second case where the two excited states decay with the same rate, one of the two lines in the emission spectrum is suppressed and the other is enhanced.
The interaction of a two-level atomic ensemble with a quantized single-mode electromagnetic field in the presence of optical collisions is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The main focus is on achieving thermal equilibrium for coupled atom-light states (in particular dressed states). We propose a model of atomic dressed-state thermalization that accounts for the evolution of the pseudo-spin Bloch vector components and characterize the essential role of the spontaneous emission rate in the thermalization process. Our model shows that the time of thermalization of the coupled atom-light states depends strictly on the ratio of the detuning to the resonant Rabi frequency. The predicted time of thermalization is in the nanosecond domain at full optical power and about 10 times shorter than the natural lifetime in our experiment. Experimentally we investigate the interaction of the optical field with rubidium atoms in an ultrahigh-pressure buffer gas cell under the conditions of large atom-field detuning comparable to the thermal energy in frequency units. In particular, an observed asymmetry of the saturated lineshape is interpreted as evidence of thermal equilibrium of coupled atom-light states.