Vacuum-Assisted Generation and Control of Atomic Coherences at X-Ray Energies
Kilian P. Heeg, Hans‐Christian Wille, Kai Schlage, Tatyana Guryeva, Daniel Schumacher, I. Uschmann, Kai Sven Schulze, Berit Marx-Glowna, T. Kämpfer, G. G. Paulus, Ralf Röhlsberger, Jörg Evers
The control of light-matter interaction at the quantum level usually requires coherent laser fields. But already an exchange of virtual photons with the electromagnetic vacuum field alone can lead to quantum coherences, which subsequently suppress spontaneous emission. We demonstrate such spontaneously generated coherences (SGC) in a large ensemble of nuclei operating in the x-ray regime, resonantly coupled to a common cavity environment. The observed SGC originates from two fundamentally different mechanisms related to cooperative emission and magnetically controlled anisotropy of the cavity vacuum. This approach opens new perspectives for quantum control, quantum state engineering and simulation of quantum many-body physics in an essentially decoherence-free setting.
The control of light-matter interaction at the quantum level usually requires coherent laser fields. But already an exchange of virtual photons with the electromagnetic vacuum field alone can lead to quantum coherences, which subsequently suppress spontaneous emission. We demonstrate such spontaneously generated coherences (SGC) in a large ensemble of nuclei operating in the x-ray regime, resonantly coupled to a common cavity environment. The observed SGC originates from two fundamentally different mechanisms related to cooperative emission and magnetically controlled anisotropy of the cavity vacuum. This approach opens new perspectives for quantum control, quantum state engineering and simulation of quantum many-body physics in an essentially decoherence-free setting.
In this work, we investigate the coherent control of the Casimir force (CF) in a four-level atomic system under electromagnetically induced chirality. Therefore, we consider two parallel slabs of finite length in a quantum vacuum composed of ensembles of cesium vapor atoms in a four-level double Λ-type atomic configuration. By the use of the quantum interference (QI) effect which arises from the cross-coupling between the different spontaneous emission pathways, we demonstrate that it is possible to fully control the CF in the system via the spontaneously generated coherence (SGC) and the relative phase between the electromagnetic fields. In fact, we first show that the chirality in the atomic system can be induced by the SGC and the probe detuning, satisfying the passivity conditions. Next, we manipulate and control the QI in the system by changing the angle between the dipole moments, as the SGC is sensitive to their relative orientations. Besides, we explore the dependence of the Casimir interaction energy on the relative phase of the control fields. Finally, we observe that the Casimir interaction energy can be switched from negative to positive for a specific given phase value.
The earliest studies on the subject of spontaneous emission from an excited atom via interaction with the vacuum modes of the radiation field go back to the early days of quantum mechanics. In view of the fundamental nature of the vacuum fluctuations, it was long thought that spontaneous emission could not be controlled. However, in 1946 Purcell noted that the spontaneous emission rate of the atom inside a resonant cavity can be substantially enhanced (or suppressed) over its free-space value. This is due to the dramatic change of the density of modes of the vacuum field in a cavity. The enhancement and suppression of spontaneous emission in resonant and off-resonant cavities were observed experimentally in the 1980s. It was also realized in the 1950s and 1960s that coherent driving fields can dramatically change the characteristics of the spontaneous emission. The Autler-Townes doublet and Mollow three-peak spectrum are the examples of such behavior. A dramatic narrowing of the spectral peaks were discovered in driven multilevel atomic systems in the early 1990s. The role of atomic coherence in quenching spontaneous emission fluctuations in the context of laser physics was studied in the 1980s, via the correlated spontaneous emission laser (CEL). In this case atomic coherence results in the correlation of two spontaneous emission noise events so that the spontaneous emission quantum noise is eliminated in the relative linewidth. Later, it was “discovered” that the spontaneous emission can be suppressed through quantum interference between decay channels. Properly stated, this was rediscovered since it was first discovered and explained by Lamb in the 1940s. If the dipoles of two transitions from one upper level to two lower levels are parallel, the spontaneous emission in an ordinary vacuum can be cancelled. In a nonuniform vacuum, e.g., a cavity, the quenching of spontaneous emission can be achieved, even for the orthogonal dipoles.
Spontaneously Generated Coherence(SGC) refers to a kind of quantum coherence induced by the process of spontaneous emission. It can greatly affect the dynamics of a quantum system, and accounts for a variety of important phenomena. Many efforts have been devoted to this topic, aiming to investigate the essence of quantum coherence and advanced technologies. However, the existence of SGC needs rigorous requirements which can hardly been fulfilled in atoms placed in a free space. Therefore we must give particular considerations to investigate this coherence experimentally. In this paper, a few interesting phenomena related to SGC are summarized, such as gain without inversion, coherent population trapping, phase sensitive spectra, and modifications of absorption, emission, and refraction. We also review the investigations on the realization of SGC, such as modifying the vacuum, coupling levels with static fields, simulating SGC with coherence induced by coherent fields, and studying SGC in special materials.
In recent years, the study of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in light-matter interactions has discovered various interesting phenomenons that orient many applications. However, due to the ambient entanglement among photons and atoms, few-particle dynamics remains challenging to analyze precisely and limits the progress in several fields. In few-particle systems, different number of atoms interacting with the light field generates drastically different results, even when there is only a single photon involved in the system. The interference between individual atom’s spontaneous emission wavefunctions can cooperatively alter the effective atom-light coupling strength. Depending on the spatial distance between individual of atoms and the involved cavities in the interaction progresses, the collective spontaneous emission rate can alter drastically from superradiance, where the emission rate is enhanced to a high value proportional to the atom number, to subradiance, where the excited atom ensemble stays in a dark state with the light trapped forever. Superradiance provides a promising mechanism to create an ultra-strong light-matter coupling environment, which is an important ingredient for the design of ultra-fast optical devices, frequency comb generation and quantum mirrors. The dark state of subradiance, on the other hand, is essential for the quantum memory implementation. Also, nontrivial phenomenons also occur when multiple photons interacting with a single atom simultaneously. When a finite number of photons incidents on an atom, their scattering through an atom is highly nonlinear, and one special eigenstate component of such nonlinear process, namely photonic bound states, exhibits many interesting properties in nonlinear quantum optical systems. The photons in such state are strongly bunched with each other, as if a virtual attractive force is in effect. Also, the frequency of photons are anti-correlated so that their total frequency remains a constant value, no matter how arbitrary the frequency of any individual is. Thesefeatures benefit certain nonlinear quantum processes for quantum computing and quantum imaging. Specially for two-photon excitation imaging, the same-parity two-level fluorophore molecules suffers from extremely low excitation efficiencies due to the far off-resonant intermediate states. However, by replacing the current commonly used ultrashort laser pulse illuminations with two photon bound state photon pairs, namely photonic dimers, the efficiency can be enhanced to orders of magnitude higher. Such exceptionally high excitation efficiency can potentially bring the current in vivo deep brain imaging depth from millimeter level to several centimeters. To obtain a stable source of such photonic dimers, it is found that a laser structure with gain medium of two-photon emission materials is capable of generating the coherent state of photonic dimer and can serve as a promising light source for nonlinear quantum optical devices.
Introduction Ever since 1916/17 when Einstein argued [45] [46] that spontaneous emission must occur if matter and radiation are to achieve thermal equilibrium, physicists have believed that spontaneous emission is an inherent quantum mechanical property of atoms and that excited atoms inevitably radiate. This view, however, overlooks the fact that spontaneous emission is a consequence of the coupling of quantized energy states of atoms with the quantized radiation field, and is a manifestation of quantum noise or of emission ‘stimulated’ by ‘vacuum fluctuations’. An infinity of vacuum states is available to the photon radiated by an excited atom placed in free space, leading to the effective irreversibility of such emissions. If these vacuum states are modified, as for example by placing an excited atom between closely spaced mirrors or in a small cavity (essentially the Casimir effect), spontaneous emission can be greatly inhibited or enhanced or even made reversible. Recent advances in atomic and optical techniques have made it possible to control and manipulate spontaneous emission. A whole new branch of quantum optics called ‘cavity QED’ has developed since 1987 utilizing these dramatic changes in spontaneous emission rates in cavities to construct new kinds of microscopic masers or micromasers that operate with a single atom and a few photons or with photons emitted in pairs in a two-photon transition.
The effect of spontaneously generated coherence (SGC) on spontaneous emission and dynamical evolution of a microwave-driven four-level atomic system is studied. Interesting phenomena due to SGC, such as spectral-line narrowing, spectra-line enhancement, spectral-line suppression, and fluorescence quenching, are shown in the spontaneous emission spectra, which can be effectively modulated by amplitude and phase of the microwave field. Due to SGC, the total populations are partly, even completely, trapped in upper levels in steady state, the decay time of which is sensitive to the phase of the microwave field. In the dressed state picture, multiple SGC arise during the process of three close-lying states decaying to the same state. The corresponding experiment to observe the expected phenomena related to SGC can be more conveniently realized in atoms, since no rigorous conditions are required and the amplitude and phase of the microwave field can be conveniently controlled.