Field-state measurement in a micromaser using retrodictive quantum theory (12 pages)

John Jeffers, Stephen Mark Barnett, David Thomas Pegg

José Ignacio Martín, Thierry Bastin

R. Bullough, N. M. Bogoliubov, N. Nayak +1 more

E.-K. Tan, John Jeffers, Stephen Mark Barnett

Injected two-level atoms, prepared and measured in various states, make an effective measurement of the cavity field of a micromaser prior to the injection of the atoms. In contrast to other existing literature on the micromaser, we have used the unconventional retrodictive quantum theory which allows us to calculate, in particular, the phase properties of the field state at an earlier time prior to the interaction with the injected atoms.

Renhong Liu, Weihan Tan, Wencang Xu +1 more

John Jeffers, S. M. Barnett, David Thomas Pegg

We use retrodictive quantum theory to describe cavity field measurements by successive atomic detections in the micromaser. We calculate the state of the micromaser cavity field prior to detection of sequences of atoms in either the excited or ground state, for atoms that are initially prepared in the excited state. This provides the POM elements, which describe such sequences of measurements.