In this article, we are interested in a spin model including the quantized electromagnetic field (photons). With this model of quantum electrodynamics (QED) related to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) we give explicit quantum radiative corrections of the time evolution for the spin observables, for the electric and magnetic fields observables and for the photon number observable. As a by-product, this underlines that Bloch equations are the semiclassical limit of the model in QED considered here. In addition, transition probabilities for the same model are investigated.
Interaction of atoms with quantum states of light is a long-standing problem that apart from fundamental physics has potential applications for optical quantum-state storage, quantum communication, and quantum information. A fully quantum mechanical treatment of this problem is usually very complicated mathematically. Here we show, however, that quantum mechanical evolution equations describing single-photon emission (absorption) by atomic ensembles can be written in a form equivalent to the semiclassical Maxwell-Bloch equations. This connection allows us to find exact analytical solutions of the fully quantum mechanical problem. We also found that semiclassical Maxwell-Bloch equations should be written in a form different from those commonly used. Namely, the classical limit of the quantum problem gives a propagation equation with the Laplacian operator on the right-hand side rather than with the second-order time derivative.
The interaction of an atomic system with an unquantized electromagnetic field is studied by means of the Heisenberg-operator equations of motion. The electromagnetic fields created by the atom are taken into account by assuming that the charge and probability current densities are the actual charge and current source terms in Maxwell's equation. When Ehrenfest's theorem is written to order (1/c
)2, the equations of motion are found to have a constant of motion that can be interpreted as stating that the sum of the atomic energy, energy of interaction, and energy stored in the electromagnetic field is constant. This constant of integration can be expressed as an expectation of a new semiclassical Hamiltonian that now includes the effects of the atomic self-fields to order 1/
c2. This Hamiltonian is related to the classical Darwin Lagrangian. Since the new approximate Hamiltonian is the sum of an atomic and a field Hamiltonian, it provides a formulation of semiclassical radiation theory that is formally close to the usual formulation of quantum electrodynamics. A Schr\"odinger equation can be derived by applying the variational principle to the expectation of the new Hamiltonian. The result is a nonlinear integro-differential equation, in \ensuremath{\Psi}, which is somewhat similar to Hartree's self-consistent equation for a multielectron atom.When the Heisenberg equations are written to include the next-higher-order terms, 1/
c3, it is found that the total energy of the atom and the electromagnetic field in the vicinity of the atom decreases at a rate that is given by the Larmor power formula (2
e2/3
c3)(d〈v〉/dt
)2, where 〈v〉 is the quantum-mechanical expectation of the electron's velocity operator. This approximate formulation of semiclassical radiation theory is applied to semiclassical calculations of atomic radiative shifts. It is then shown that, if some retardation effects are included to all orders of 1/c in the vector potential, the semiclassical analysis provides a formula for radiative energy-level shifts that are time dependent and that contain coefficients similar to the starting point of the Bethe calculation of the Lamb shift. The incorporation of mass renormalization in semiclassical theory is then discussed.
Abstract This article is concerned with the time evolution of spin observables for generalized spin boson models. This applies in particular to a model of nuclear magnetic resonance, namely a 1 2 -spin particle in a constant external magnetic field and in interaction with the quantized electromagnetic field (photons). We derive a Lindblad (or GKLS) type approximation of the spin dynamics initially in a photon vacuum state together with a precise control of the error coming from this approximation. The error term is bounded by g 2 where g is the coupling constant of the spin–photon interaction. The point here is the uniformity in time t > 0 of this error control.
In this article, we consider fixed spin-1/2 particles interacting through the quantized electromagnetic field in a constant magnetic field. We give approximate evolutions of coherent states. This uses spins-photon classical Hamiltonian mechanics. These approximations enable to derive that the approximate average fields and spins follow Maxwell-Bloch equations with a current density coming from spins. In addition, we obain a law concerning the evolution of the approximate average number of photons. Next, we provide stationary points of the spins-photon Hamiltonian when the spin particles belong to an orthogonal plane to the constant magnetic field. This allows for the construction of quasimodes with spins colinear to the constant magnetic field. Finally, a quasimode with an arbitrary high accuracy is built up and its first order radiative correction is computed.
We apply the methods of cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED), to obtain a microscopic and fully quantum-mechanical picture of radiation damping in magnetic resonance, and the nascent formation of the free induction signal. Numerical solution of the Tavis-Cummings model - i.e., multiple spins 1∕2 coupled to a lossless single-mode cavity - shows in fine detail the transfer of Zeeman energy, via spin coherence, to excite the cavity - represented here by a quantized LC resonator. The case of a single spin is also solved analytically. Although the motion of the Bloch vector is non-classical, we nonetheless show that the quantum mechanical Rabi nutation frequency (as enhanced by cavity coupling and stimulated emission) gives realistic estimates of macroscopic signal strength and the radiation damping constant in nuclear magnetic resonance. We also show how to introduce dissipation: cavity losses by means of a master equation, and relaxation by the phenomenological method of Bloch. The failure to obtain the full Bloch equations (unless semi-classical conditions are imposed on the cavity) is discussed in light of similar issues arising in CQED (and in earlier work in magnetic resonance as well), as are certain problems relative to quantization of the electromagnetic near-field.