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Quantum Optics Journal of the European Optical Society Part B

Effective hamiltonians and the two-photon laser

A. W. Boone, S. Swain

Published Sep 1, 1989• 46 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The authors derive the equation of motion for the field density matrix of the non-degenerate two-photon laser under conditions of two-photon resonance starting from the full microscopic hamiltonian. They calculate the mean photon numbers and establish which solutions are stable. The results are compared with the corresponding quantities obtained from the effective hamiltonian. In general, there are significant differences. It is shown how the full diagonal density matrix equations tend to the effective hamiltonian density matrix equations in an appropriate limit. The same limit applied to the microscopic off-diagonal elements does not however give the off-diagonal equations of motion obtained in the effective hamiltonian approach. The off-diagonal elements determine, for example, the laser linewidths and cross-correlation coefficient so that the effective hamiltonian approach leads to correct results for these quantities. The results show that for a full understanding of the two-photon laser, the microscopic approach is essential.

DOI
10.1088/0954-8998/1/1/004

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QUANTUM THEORY OF TWO-PHOTON LASER

Wang Zhicheng, 兰州大学物理系,兰州,730001

Starting from the microscopic Hamiltonian of the three-level model and making use of the slowly varying amplitude approximation and the two-photon rotating wave approximation, we derive an effective Hamiltonian for the two-level two photon model under conditions where the two-photon process dominates the other radiartive processes, so that an exact relation between the three-level model and the two-level two-photon model is established. The effective Hamiltonian includes a term come from the optical Stark effect which was neglected in the conventional treatment. The coefficient of this term may have the same order of magnitude as the effective coupling constant. Based on this effective Hamiltonian, the standard method of Haken's laser theory is applied to study the threshold, the mean photon number, the self-induced frequency shift, the photon statistics and the fluctuation in steady states. Results are compared with previous ones which neglect the Strk effect.

Acta Physica Sinica•Jan 1, 1991•0 citations
The authors derive the equation of motion for the field density matrix of the non-degenerate two-photon laser under conditions of two-photon resonance starting from the full microscopic hamiltonian. They calculate the mean photon numbers and establish which solutions are stable. The results are compared with the corresponding quantities obtained from the effective hamiltonian. In general, there are significant differences. It is shown how the full diagonal density matrix equations tend to the effective hamiltonian density matrix equations in an appropriate limit. The same limit applied to the microscopic off-diagonal elements does not however give the off-diagonal equations of motion obtained in the effective hamiltonian approach. The off-diagonal elements determine, for example, the laser linewidths and cross-correlation coefficient so that the effective hamiltonian approach leads to correct results for these quantities. The results show that for a full understanding of the two-photon laser, the microscopic approach is essential.
We derive the equation of motion for the field density matrix of the degenerate two-photon laser under conditions of two-photon resonance starting from the full microscopic Hamiltonian. Our results are compared with the corresponding quantities obtained from the standard effective Hamiltonian. As we have shown for the nondegenerate case, the full diagonal density-matrix equations tend to the effective Hamiltonian density-matrix equations in an appropriate limit, but the equations of motion for the off-diagonal elements do not coincide. The equations obtained using a more accurate form of the effective Hamiltonian, in which Stark shifts are included, do agree. In this paper we concentrate on the photon-number distribution and the nature of the phase transition that takes place in the neighborhood of the two-photon lasing transition threshold. We determine the steady-state mean photon numbers and consider the stability of the solutions. A solution is found where the mean photon number is zero, but this is found to be a stable solution only for sufficiently weak pumping, whereas in the standard effective Hamiltonian approach it is always stable. As the pumping strength is increased, a range of detunings is reached in which there are two stable solutions. The amplitude of the zero-photon peak diminishes very rapidly as the pumping strength increases. Finally, for sufficiently large detunings, a single, stable, steady-state solution is obtained. The nature of the phase transition is illustrated by presenting plots of the photon-number distribution against detuning and pumping rate. The photon-number fluctuations about the mean are also discussed.
A quantum theory of a two-photon laser is developed by making use of the antinormal-ordering Q function. Starting from the microscopic atom-field interaction Hamiltonian for cascade three-level atoms and including saturable absorbers, we first present a master equation for the field-density operator, and then transform the master equation into a Fokker-Planck equation for the Q function. The Q-function approach enables us to study the two-photon laser analytically, obtaining simple expressions for nonlinear gain, mean photon number, frequency pulling, natural linewidth, and photon-number variance in a unified method. We find that the field in a two-photon laser will build up from a vacuum without triggering if its linear gain is larger than the cavity loss. Also hysteresis can occur in the two-photon laser even without triggering. With an overall two-photon resonance, the normalized photon-number variance approaches a common value 11/8 well above ``threshold,'' independent of the one-photon detuning. We compare these results with previous results obtained from an effective interaction Hamiltonian. We find that the domain of validity of the effective Hamiltonian for the photon-number variance is much smaller than that for the mean photon number. Well above ``threshold'' the effective Hamiltonian overestimates both the natural linewidth and the photon-number variance.
This paper presents new results on aspects of the two-photon laser. A semiclassical investigation of threshold behaviour reveals that the atom-field coupling is already so strong at threshold that a non-perturbative treatment of the dynamics is necessary. A master equation is derived on the basis of an effective Hamiltonian generalized in that it includes the effect of an overall two-photon detuning, the effect of ionization of the upper atomic level and the effect of dynamic Stark shifts. From the diagonal elements of the master equation, a Fokker-Planck equation is obtained and shown to yield a general analytical expression for the photon distribution which is found to simplify considerably in special cases. The agreement with the result obtained through numerical solution of the master equation itself is very good. It is further shown that a detuning from two-photon resonance and a significant Stark shift lead to sub-Poissonian statistics. Finally, time-dependent solutions for the photon distribution under an injected coherent state are presented.
We present the theory of a microscopic maser operating on a nondegenerate two-photon transition between two states of same parity. We start from a three-level Hamiltonian, and discuss both the one-photon resonant cascade and the two-photon regime, when the intermediate state is far off resonance. In the semiclassical limit, we derive rate equations for the field intensities and get the corresponding steady-state values. The vacuum is stable in the two-photon regime but becomes unstable for zero detuning (a clear signature of a one-photon process). Solutions displaying true two-photon operation (intermediate state unpopulated) even with zero detuning are displayed. Using the full quantum density-matrix approach, we derive a master equation for the field and discuss both operating regimes, showing that the spontaneous emission may turn the vacuum unstable in the two-photon case. In the off-resonance two-photon regime, there is a strong correlation between the fluctuations of the intensities of the two modes. We find a squeezing factor of 50% for the fluctuations in the difference of intensities.
We generalize Lamb's quantum theory of lasers to treat the off-resonance operation of two-transition lasers in inhomogeneously broadened media. The master equation is derived from the density-matrix equation of motion in the Doppler limit. We first find the stationary-state solution from which we then obtain such operation characteristics as the threshold condition, the mean photon number, and the half-width of photon distribution. Compared with the one-transition laser, it is found that in the two-transition laser it is much easier to start oscillation and to obtain higher gain. Furthermore, we find that the two-transition laser is less sensitive to the detuning effect and its deviation from the coherent state is smaller than that of the one-transition laser. The remarkably different hole-burning phenomenon is also discussed.
Starting from the microscopic Hamiltonian of the three-level model and making use of the slowly varying amplitude approximation and the two-photon rotating wave approximation, we derive an effective Hamiltonian for the two-level two photon model under conditions where the two-photon process dominates the other radiartive processes, so that an exact relation between the three-level model and the two-level two-photon model is established. The effective Hamiltonian includes a term come from the optical Stark effect which was neglected in the conventional treatment. The coefficient of this term may have the same order of magnitude as the effective coupling constant. Based on this effective Hamiltonian, the standard method of Haken's laser theory is applied to study the threshold, the mean photon number, the self-induced frequency shift, the photon statistics and the fluctuation in steady states. Results are compared with previous ones which neglect the Strk effect.