The influence of the center-of-mass motion of a trapped atom on the efficiency of resonant single-photon absorption is investigated. It is found that, even for small trapping frequencies, high single-photon excitation efficiency can be achieved by squeezing the center-of-mass wave packet with modulated trapping frequencies.
We have proposed and investigated for the first time an efficient way of photon transport through a subwavelength hole by a moving atom. The transfer mechanism is based on the reduction of the wave packet of a single photon due to its absorption by an atom and, correspondingly, its localization in a volume is smaller than both the radiation wavelength and the nanohole size. The scheme realizes the transformation of a single-photon single-mode wave packet of the laser light into a single-photon multimode wave packet in free space.
We theoretically investigate the quantum dynamics of the center of mass of trapped atoms, whose internal degrees of freedom are driven in a $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$-shaped configuration with the lasers tuned at two-photon resonance. In the Lamb-Dicke regime, when the motional wave packet is well localized over the laser wavelength, transient coherent population trapping occurs, canceling transitions at the laser frequency. In this limit the motion can be efficiently cooled to the ground state of the trapping potential. We derive an equation for the center-of-mass motion by adiabatically eliminating the internal degrees of freedom. This treatment provides the theoretical background of the scheme presented in [G. Morigi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4458 (2000)] and implemented in [C.F. Roos et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 5547 (2000)]. We discuss the physical mechanisms determining the dynamics and identify parameters regimes, where cooling is efficient. We discuss implementations of the scheme to cases where the trapping potential is not harmonic.
The Stokes and anti-Stokes components of the spectrum of resonance fluorescence of a single trapped atom, which originate from the mechanical coupling between the scattered photons and the quantized motion of the atomic center of mass, exhibit quantum correlations which are of two-mode-squeezing type. We study and demonstrate the build-up of such correlations in a specific setup, which is experimentally accessible, and where the atom acts as efficient and continuous source of EPR-entangled, two-mode squeezed light.
We present a nonperturbative result for the spectrum of spontaneous photons emitted by an atom coupled on resonance to a standing-wave cavity mode. Motion of the atom through the standing-wave mode function is included in a classical way. We discuss the form of the spectrum as a function of the velocity of the atom in the limit of strong dipole coupling. For slow atoms the normal-mode doublet (``vacuum'' Rabi spectrum) survives with small changes. The motion of a fast atom through the standing wave averages the coupling constant to zero, and the spectrum reverts to a single peak. At intermediate velocities the spectrum has a complicated multipeaked structure that can be understood in terms of interfering probability amplitudes for different quantum-mechanical emission paths or as a frequency-modulation spectrum for radiating coupled oscillators.