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arXiv:2501.14392 · Physical Review A

Emission from driven atoms in collective strong coupling with an optical cavity

V. R. Thakar, Arun Bahuleyan, V. I. Gokul, S. P. Dinesh, S. A. Rangwala

Published Sep 2, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

We study self-sustained cavity emission from driven atoms in collective strong coupling. The cavity emission occurs over a wide range of atom-cavity and drive-laser detunings without any external input to the cavity mode. Second-order correlation measurements ${g}^{(2)}(\ensuremath{\tau})$ further reveal unanticipated phenomena in the observed cavity emission such as (1) damped oscillations at two frequencies and (2) significantly distinct ${g}^{(2)}(\ensuremath{\tau})$ for different polarization components. The intricate relation between cavity-emission intensity, drive-laser detuning, and atom-cavity detunings is explained. A possible mechanism for the damped oscillations with two frequency components in ${g}^{(2)}(\ensuremath{\tau})$ is suggested. Measurements show the existence of two separate polarization-decoupled mechanisms with distinct photon statistics, through which energy is transferred from the drive field to the cavity field. The statistical properties and mechanisms underlying cavity emission present valuable insights for extending nondestructive detection techniques to the regime of collective strong coupling.

DOI
10.1103/hbp6-72yn

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We study self-sustained cavity emission from driven atoms in collective strong coupling. The cavity emission occurs over a wide range of atom-cavity and drive-laser detunings without any external input to the cavity mode. Second-order correlation measurements g(2)(\ensuremathτ){g}^{(2)}(\ensuremath{\tau})g(2)(\ensuremathτ) further reveal unanticipated phenomena in the observed cavity emission such as (1) damped oscillations at two frequencies and (2) significantly distinct g(2)(\ensuremathτ){g}^{(2)}(\ensuremath{\tau})g(2)(\ensuremathτ) for different polarization components. The intricate relation between cavity-emission intensity, drive-laser detuning, and atom-cavity detunings is explained. A possible mechanism for the damped oscillations with two frequency components in g(2)(\ensuremathτ){g}^{(2)}(\ensuremath{\tau})g(2)(\ensuremathτ) is suggested. Measurements show the existence of two separate polarization-decoupled mechanisms with distinct photon statistics, through which energy is transferred from the drive field to the cavity field. The statistical properties and mechanisms underlying cavity emission present valuable insights for extending nondestructive detection techniques to the regime of collective strong coupling.
The interaction of laser cooled atoms with resonant light is determined by the natural linewidth of the excited state. An optical cavity is another optically resonant system where the loss from the cavity determines the resonant optical response of the system. The near resonant combination of an optical Fabry-Pérot cavity with laser cooled and trapped atoms couples two distinct optical resonators via light and has great potential for precision measurements and the creation of versatile quantum optics systems. Here we show how driven magneto-optically trapped atoms in collective strong coupling regime with the cavity leads to lasing at a frequency red detuned from the atomic transition. Lasing is demonstrated experimentally by the observation of a lasing threshold accompanied by polarization and spatial mode purity, and line-narrowing in the outcoupled light. Spontaneous emission into the cavity mode by the driven atoms stimulates lasing action, which is capable of operating as a continuous wave laser in steady state, without a seed laser. The system is modeled theoretically, and qualitative agreement with experimentally observed lasing is seen. Our result opens up a range of new measurement possibilities with this system.
We study the quantum dynamics of an array of coherently driven two-level atoms coupled to an optical resonator. In the strong coupling regime the cavity field generated by atomic scattering interferes destructively with the pump on the atoms. In this configuration atomic excitation is suppressed even for strong driving fields, while the stationary intracavity field amplitude is almost independent of the atom number. The magnitude of this interference effect depends on the detuning between laser and cavity field and on the relative atomic positions and is strongest when the atoms are ordered in a wavelength spaced lattice placed at the antinodes of the cavity mode. In this case three dimensional intensity minima are created in the vicinity of each atom. We analyze the mechanical forces in the regime where the interference condition is fulfilled, and show that the atomic pattern is mechanically stable whenever the driving frequency is red detuned with respect to the cavity frequency, irrespective of the atomic transition frequency
We calculate the probe spectrum for multilevel atoms in a damped, weakly driven cavity supporting two degenerate orthogonally polarized modes. One mode is weakly driven by a linearly polarized external field. The atoms, initially prepared in a mF=0{m}_{F}=0mF​=0 hyperfine ground state, couple to the driven mode by making a $\ensuremath{\Delta}{m}_{F}=0$ transition and to the orthogonally polarized mode by making $\ensuremath{\Delta}{m}_{F}=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1$ transitions to other hyperfine sublevels. We compare probe spectra, the intensity of the driven mode, the undriven mode, and the atomic excitation probability as a function of the detuning of the driving laser from the cavity resonance for three- and four-level atomic models. In both cases the spectrum of the driven mode is a vacuum Rabi doublet familiar from the driven, damped Jaynes-Cummings model. The undriven mode spectrum is a triplet with the maximum on resonance for the three-level model while the four-level model has a four-peaked spectrum. We discuss the role of strong coupling to the undriven mode in accounting for the qualitative difference between the models.
We present a study of the quantum statistical properties of light emitted by two coherently driven atoms coupled to a single-mode cavity, an ideal setup to precisely investigate various aspects of collective behavior over a wide range of couplings to cavity and external drive. At high pumping and coupling, we predict the possibility of steady-state hyperradiance accompanied by (super-)bunching for an out of phase radiation. The mean photon number can be up to 222 orders of magnitude higher than in the single atom case. The highest nonclassicality in the sense of the smallest Mandel QQQ parameter is found when spontaneous emission, cavity decay, coherent pumping, and atom-cavity coupling are comparable. A quantum version of the negative binomial distribution with parameters directly related to QQQ characterizes the photon distribution in the cavity and its quantum features.
We theoretically investigate the correlated dynamics of N coherently driven atoms coupled to a standing-wave cavity mode. For red detuning between the driving field and the cavity as well as the atomic resonance frequencies, we predict a light force induced self-organization of the atoms into one of two possible regular patterns, which maximize the cooperative scattering of light into the cavity field. Kinetic energy is extracted from the atoms by superradiant light scattering to reach a final kinetic energy related to the cavity linewidth. The self-organization starts only above a threshold of the pump strength and atom number. We find a quadratic dependence of the cavity mode intensity on the atom number, which demonstrates the cooperative effect.
We use an optical cavity in the regime of intermediate coupling between atom and cavity mode to detect single moving atoms. Degenerate polarization modes allow excitation of the atoms in one mode and collection of spontaneous emission in the other while keeping separate the two sources of light; we obtain a higher confidence and efficiency of detection by adding cavity-enhanced Faraday rotation. Both methods greatly benefit from coincidence detection of photons, attaining fidelities in excess of 99% in less than $1\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\text{s}$. Detailed studies of the second-order intensity autocorrelation function of light from the signal mode reveal evidence of antibunched photon emissions and the dynamics of single-atom transits.