Abstract The influence of quantum tunneling effects on the bistability of nonlinear resonantly driven oscillators in the presence of external noise is analyzed by means of the generalized Fokker–Planck equation in quasi-energy space. Two time scales responsible for different stages of bistable system relaxation have been revealed. It was found that quantum tunneling effects could strongly change the switching rates between different stable states and considerably enhance occupation of the stable state with higher amplitude. It was also revealed that tunneling between nearly degenerate quasi-energy states and resonant multi-photon transitions between the genuine eigenstates of the nonlinear oscillator are just similar effects.
We considered the multiphoton resonance in the periodically driven quantum oscillator with Kerr nonlinearity in the presence of weak high-order nonlinearities. Multiphoton resonance leads to the emergence of peaks and dips in the dependence of the stationary occupations of the stable states on detuning. We demonstrated that due to high-order nonlinearities, these peaks and dips acquire additional fine structure and split into several closely spaced ones. Quasiclassically, multiphoton resonance is treated as tunneling between the regions of the oscillator phase portrait, and the fine structure of the multiphoton resonance is a consequence of a special quasienergy dependence of the tunneling rate between different regions of the classical phase portrait. For different values of damping and high-order nonlinearity coefficients, we identified the domain of quasienergies where tunneling strongly influences the system kinetics. The corresponding tunneling term in the Fokker-Planck equation in quasienergy space was derived directly from the quantum master equation.
We analyze the driven resonantly coupled Jaynes-Cummings model in terms of a quasienergy approach by switching to a frame rotating with the external modulation frequency and by using the dressed atom picture. A quasienergy surface in phase space emerges whose level spacing is governed by a rescaled effective Planck constant. Moreover, the well-known multiphoton transitions can be reinterpreted as resonant tunneling transitions from the local maximum of the quasienergy surface. Most importantly, the driving defines a quasienergy well which is nonperturbative in nature. The quantum-mechanical quasienergy state localized at its bottom is squeezed. In the Purcell-limited regime, the potential well is metastable and the effective local temperature close to its minimum is uniquely determined by the squeezing factor. The activation occurs in this case via dressed spin-flip transitions rather than via quantum activation as in other driven nonlinear quantum systems such as the quantum Duffing oscillator. The local maximum is, in general, stable. However, in presence of resonant coherent or dissipative tunneling transitions the system can escape from it and a stationary state arises as a statistical mixture of quasienergy states being localized in the two basins of attraction. This gives rise to a resonant or an antiresonant nonlinear response of the cavity at multiphoton transitions. The model finds direct application in recent experiments with a driven superconducting circuit quantum electrodynamics setup.
We discuss the quantum-statistical properties of a system of absorbing atoms in a ring cavity under the action of a resonant classical field. At a semiclassical level, this system exhibits a bistable behavior in the sense that the transmitted light
ET is a discontinuous function of the incident light
EI with a hysteresis cycle, which resembles a first-order phase transition. Here we specify this analogy stressing the nonthermodynamic properties of this coherently driven system. The quantized field
ET is described by a Glauber
P function, which obeys to a Fokker-Planck equation. This equation is derived from a very general master equation in the case of a good quality cavity by neglecting derivatives of order higher than second. A remarkable feature of this equation is that the diffusion coefficient is a nonlinear function of the field intensity. The steady-state solution of the Fokker-Planck equation has the following features. The
P function can be single or double peaked according to the value of
EI. In fact, our Fokker-Planck equation is like the one of a Brownian particle moving in a potential which presents one minimum or minima separated by a barrier, depending on the value of
EI. The peaks of the
P function correspond to the minima of the potential. In the double-peaked case, the peaks have different widths. The maxima of the
p function occur at values of
ET, which coincide with the classical stationary solutions that are stable according to the linear stability analysis. These semiclassical solutions give a discontinuous two-valued function of
ET vs
EI (hysteresis cycle). On the contrary, the mean value
〈ET〉 is a continuous single-valued function of
EI, which behaves similarly to the Maxwell construction of a first-order phase transition:
〈ET〉 jumps from low to high values in a very sharp transition region of
EI, which lies between the discontinuity points of the hysteresis cycle. However, the Maxwell rule that we obtain is quite different from that of equilibrium thermodynamics. The mean-square fluctuations of
ET are always very small except in the transition region where they are quite remarkable. We also present an exact expression of the stationary
P function, which takes into account all higher-order derivatives, and we show that the Fokker-Planck approximation is very good for calculating mean values and mean-square fluctuations. Finally, we discuss the connections which link bistable absorption to the laser with injected signal and to the laser with a saturable absorber.
The topic of this thesis is a theoretical study of nonequilibrium transitions and quantum statistical properties of nonlinear quantum optical systems driven by an external radiation source. In certain limiting cases, a comparison is made between these transitions and the phase transitions found in equilibrium physical systems. In chapters one and two, the mathematical tools are introduced. In operator terms, the time development is described by a Markovian master equation in the interaction picture. This is equivalent to a corresponding time development equation or Fokker-Planck equation in a vector space of c-numbers. In order to deal with the type of Fokker-Planck equation that results, we introduce a quantum classical correspondence resulting in a distribution function over a complex phase-space, which is a generalisation of the Glauber-Sudarshan P-function. In chapter three this is applied to a model of a coherently driven mode with nonlinear dispersion and absorption. We find in the limit of zero temperature, that the spectrum is symmetric relative to the input frequency, and an exact solution is obtained for the distribution function. For a detuned driving field and nonlinear dispersion, optical bistability can occur. In chapter four a model of sub/second harmonic generation is introduced. This has several non-equilibrium transitions, including dispersive optical bistability, and bistable behaviour with coherent phase-locked input to both modes. Exact solutions occur in the limit of zero temperature and adiabatic elimination of one mode. In both chapters three and four, steady-state photon anti-bunching occurs with an absorptive nonlinearity. In chapter five we include interactions between the radiation mode and a fluorescent atomic system. In this case different behaviour occurs depending on the relative decay rates of the individual atoms and of the radiation mode. In the case of a high-Q interferometer, the atomic variables can be adiabatically eliminated. Both dispersive and absorptive bistability can occur. We show by analytic and numerical calculations (in the case of inhomogeneous broadening) that dispersive operation has advantages in requiring a lower atomic density and input field to observe bistability. When the input field has Gaussian (rather than coherent) photon statistics, there is no bistability, but enhanced photon bunching occurs. Finally, there is a different type of behaviour when the field mode decays rapidly and can be adiabatically eliminated. Within the cooperation lifetime the system can be described by a J²-invariant Hamiltonian, giving the special case of only collective damping. The result is a new type of critical point transition in the thermodynamic limit, with the appearance of a family of solutions like Lotka-Volterra cycles for a coherent driving field above threshold.
We present an analytical and numerical study of the fluorescence spectra of a bistable driven system by means of the Keldysh diagram technique in pseudoparticle representation. The spectra exhibit smooth transition between the ultraquantum and the quasiclassical limits and indicate the threshold value of the external field when changing of the most probable stable state occurs. The analysis of the fluorescence spectra also allows us to determine the most probable stable state of the system. It was also shown that, at integer and half-integer detuning-nonlinearity ratios, multiphoton resonance leads to abrupt changes in fluorescence spectra. It was also revealed that the fluorescence spectra are symmetric in the limit of zero environment temperature. The predicted features of the spectra could be observed in experiments with ultrahigh-quality resonators in either microwave or optical domains.