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arXiv:2209.10419

Flying atom back-reaction and mechanically generated photons from vacuum

Alberto Mercurio, Simone De Liberato, Franco Nori, Salvatore Savasta, Roberto Stassi

Published Sep 21, 2022• 0 citations
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Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of a two-level atom flying through a photonic cavity when the light-matter interaction is in the ultrastrong coupling regime. We adopt a closed full quantum description that takes into account the quantization of the atom center-of-mass motion in addition to its internal degree of freedom and to the quantized photonic cavity field. We find that multiple qualitatively different dynamical regimes are achievable according to two key figures of merit: the ratio between the kinetic energy and the bare excitation energies, and the product of these bare energies with the time the atom takes to fly through the cavity. According to the values of those figures of merit, the atom can be reflected by the \emph{dressed} vacuum, or can convert part of its kinetic energy into real excitations which might be emitted out of the cavity. In the first case, the atom experiences a \emph{quantum regenerative braking} mechanism, based on temporary storage of energy into virtual excitations.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2209.10419

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We investigate the dynamics of a two-level atom flying through a photonic cavity when the light-matter interaction is in the ultrastrong coupling regime. We adopt a closed full quantum description that takes into account the quantization of the atom center-of-mass motion in addition to its internal degree of freedom and to the quantized photonic cavity field. We find that multiple qualitatively different dynamical regimes are achievable according to two key figures of merit: the ratio between the kinetic energy and the bare excitation energies, and the product of these bare energies with the time the atom takes to fly through the cavity. According to the values of those figures of merit, the atom can be reflected by the \emph{dressed} vacuum, or can convert part of its kinetic energy into real excitations which might be emitted out of the cavity. In the first case, the atom experiences a \emph{quantum regenerative braking} mechanism, based on temporary storage of energy into virtual excitations.
Photon antibunching in the light scattered by single quantum emitters is one of the hallmarks of quantum optics, providing an unequivocal demonstration of the quantized nature of the electromagnetic field. Antibunching can be intuitively understood by the need for a two-level system lying in its lower state after emitting a photon to be re-excited into the upper one before a second emission can take place. Here we show that such a picture breaks down in the ultrastrong light–matter coupling regime, when the coupling strength becomes comparable to the bare emitter frequency. Specializing to the cases of both a natural and an artificial atom, we thus show that a single emitter coupled to a photonic resonator can emit bunched light. The result presented herein is clear evidence of how the ultrastrong coupling regime is able to change the nature of individual atoms.
Photon antibunching in the light scattered by single quantum emitters is one of the hallmarks of quantum optics, providing an unequivocal demonstration of the quantized nature of the electromagnetic field. Antibunching can be intuitively understood by the need for a two-level system lying in its lower state after emitting a photon to be re-excited into the upper one before a second emission can take place. Here we show that such a picture breaks down in the ultrastrong light-matter coupling regime, when the coupling strength becomes comparable to the bare emitter frequency. Specialising to the cases of both a natural and a superconducting artificial atom, we thus show that a single emitter coupled to a photonic resonator can emit bunched light. The result presented herein is a clear evidence of how the ultrastrong coupling regime is able to change the nature of individual atoms.
We investigate theoretically quantum effects of a cavity-atom system in which the upper two levels of a cascade-type three-level atom interact with a cavity field mode in the ultrastrong-coupling regime. By exploiting the virtual photons carried by atom-cavity dressed states, we indicate how two external driving fields induce Raman transitions such that a cavity photon pair can be generated with a high probability. We present analytical and numerical solutions of the system and determine the rate of photons transmitted out of the cavity. In addition, we show that the transmitted photons exhibit a bunching behavior in the steady state. Our scheme demonstrates that atom-cavity dressed states in the ultrastrong-coupling regime can serve as intermediate states to invoke nonlinear optical processes.
We present an interaction scheme that exhibits a dynamical effect of virtual photons carried by a vacuum-field dressed two-level atom in the ultrastrong-coupling regime. We show that, with the aid of an external driving field, virtual photons provide a transition matrix element that enables the atom to evolve coherently and reversibly to an auxiliary level accompanied by the emission of a real photon. The process corresponds to a type of vacuum Rabi oscillation, and we show that the effective vacuum Rabi frequency is proportional to the amplitude of a single virtual photon in the ground state. Therefore, the interaction scheme could serve as a probe of ground-state structures in the ultrastrong-coupling regime.
The ground state of an atom interacting with the electromagnetic field in the ultrastrong coupling regime is composed of virtual photons entangled with the atom. We propose a method to promote to real the entire photonic state, while preserving the entanglement with the atom. The process can be reversed, and the entangled state can be restored in the vacuum. We consider a four-level atom, with two of these levels ultrastrongly coupled to a cavity mode. The process is obtained by making use of either an ideal ultrafast pulse or a more realistic multitone $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulse that drives only the atom. An experimental realization of this proposal will not only enable the investigation of the exotic phenomena of emission of particles from the vacuum, but will also prove that quantum superposition states can be extracted from the vacuum. Moreover, it will allow one to inspect the ground state in the ultrastrong coupling regime, and to generate on-demand entangled states for quantum information processing.
We consider an atom inside a ring cavity, where a plane-wave cavity field together with an external coherent laser beam induces a two-photon Raman transition between two hyperfine ground states of the atom. This cavity-assisted Raman transition induces effective coupling between atom’s internal degrees of freedom and its center-of-mass motion. In the meantime, atomic dynamics exerts a back-action to cavity photons. We investigate the properties of this system by adopting a mean-field and a full quantum approach, and show that the interplay between the atomic dynamics and the cavity field gives rise to intriguing nonlinear phenomena.