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Physical Review A

Time evolution, Lamb shift, and emission spectra of spontaneous emission of two identical atoms

Dawei Wang, Zheng-Hong Li, Hang Zheng, Shi-Yao Zhu

Published Apr 15, 2010• 26 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A unitary transformation method is used to investigate the dynamic evolution of two multilevel atoms, in the basis of symmetric and antisymmetric states, with one atom being initially prepared in the first excited state and the other in the ground state. The unitary transformation guarantees that our calculations are based on the ground state of the atom-field system and the self-energy is subtracted at the beginning. The total Lamb shifts of the symmetric and antisymmetric states are divided into transformed shift and dynamic shift. The transformed shift is due to emitting and reabsorbing of virtual photons, by a single atom (nondynamic single atomic shift) and between the two atoms (quasi-static shift). The dynamic shift is due to the emitting and reabsorbing of real photons, by a single atom (dynamic single atomic shift) and between the two atoms (dynamic interatomic shift). The emitting and reabsorbing of virtual and real photons between the two atoms result in the interatomic shift, which does not exist for the one-atom case. The spectra at the long-time limit are calculated. If the distance between the two atoms is shorter than or comparable to the wavelength, the strong coupling between the two atoms splits the spectrum into two peaks, one from the symmetric state and the other from the antisymmetric state. The origin of the red or blue shifts for the symmetric and antisymmetric states mainly lies in the negative or positive interaction energy between the two atoms. In the investigation of the short time evolution, we find the modification of the effective density of states by the interaction between two atoms can modulate the quantum Zeno and quantum anti-Zeno effects in the decays of the symmetric and antisymmetric states.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.81.043819

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A unitary transformation method is used to investigate the dynamic evolution of two multilevel atoms, in the basis of symmetric and antisymmetric states, with one atom being initially prepared in the first excited state and the other in the ground state. The unitary transformation guarantees that our calculations are based on the ground state of the atom-field system and the self-energy is subtracted at the beginning. The total Lamb shifts of the symmetric and antisymmetric states are divided into transformed shift and dynamic shift. The transformed shift is due to emitting and reabsorbing of virtual photons, by a single atom (nondynamic single atomic shift) and between the two atoms (quasi-static shift). The dynamic shift is due to the emitting and reabsorbing of real photons, by a single atom (dynamic single atomic shift) and between the two atoms (dynamic interatomic shift). The emitting and reabsorbing of virtual and real photons between the two atoms result in the interatomic shift, which does not exist for the one-atom case. The spectra at the long-time limit are calculated. If the distance between the two atoms is shorter than or comparable to the wavelength, the strong coupling between the two atoms splits the spectrum into two peaks, one from the symmetric state and the other from the antisymmetric state. The origin of the red or blue shifts for the symmetric and antisymmetric states mainly lies in the negative or positive interaction energy between the two atoms. In the investigation of the short time evolution, we find the modification of the effective density of states by the interaction between two atoms can modulate the quantum Zeno and quantum anti-Zeno effects in the decays of the symmetric and antisymmetric states.
The spontaneous decay of a multilevel atom interacting with the electromagnetic field in free space is investigated with a unitary transformation method, which is introduced in order to include all rotating and counter-rotating terms in the Hamiltonian. By using the ground state of the total Hamiltonian, the evolution of the effective decay rate and the energy shift are calculated. When the atomic transition frequency is smaller than the central frequency of the spectrum, the Zeno effect dominates, and if the atomic transition frequency is larger than the central frequency, the anti-Zeno effect will dominate. The time evolution of the energy shift is obtained. The counter-rotating terms lead to a shift toward the low frequency region for the frequency distribution of the emitted photon.
The time evolution of the Lamb shift that accompanies the real photon emission is studied for the first time (to our knowledge). The investigation of the explicit time dependence of the Lamb shift becomes possible because the self-energy of the free electron, which is divergent, is subtracted from the Hamiltonian after a unitary transformation. The Lamb shift can then be separated into two parts: one is the time-independent shift due to the virtual photon exchange, and the other is the time-dependent shift due to the real photon emission. The time evolution depends on the nature of the coupling spectrum of the reservoir.
The excitation spectrum arising from the interaction between two identical atoms (molecules), one of which is excited in the presence of a resonant strong electromagnetic field (pump field), is investigated. The excitation spectrum is found to consist of those describing the symmetric and antisymmetric modes, respectively. The form of both spectra depends on the relation between the distance RRR separating the atoms and the wavelength $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ of the transition from the ground state to the excited state. For $R<\ensuremath{\lambda}$, and when certain conditions prevail, the spectral function for the symmetric modes consists of three Lorentzian lines describing the central peak and the two sidebands whose radiative widths are equal to ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{0}$, $\frac{3{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{0}}{2}$, and $\frac{3{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{0}}{2}$, which are twice the corresponding ones arising from an isolated single atom interacting with the pump field. For the antisymmetric modes the central peak has a $\ensuremath{\delta}$-function distribution indicating the stability of the mode in question, while, when certain conditions are satisfied, the two sidebands are described by Lorentzian lines each having a radiative width of the order of $\frac{{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{0}}{2}$, which is equal to the natural linewidth for a photon spontaneously emitted from an isolated atom. For both the symmetric and antisymmetric modes, the dipole-dipole interaction between the atoms brings about small energy shifts. For $R>\ensuremath{\lambda}$, apart from the small energy shifts caused by the dipole-dipole interaction, the spectral functions for symmetric and antisymmetric modes are similar to that for the single atom interacting with the pump field.
Second-order interference effects in the spontaneous emission by two identical two-level atoms, separated a distance apart and both initially excited, are considered. On the basis of the analysis in our previous paper published in 2004, within fourth-order perturbation, detailed analysis of the second-order quantum interference in the emitted field is made. The interference arises both from single-photon states and two-photon states owing to interferences between different decaying sequences. By detailed analysis we have found some cancellations between single-photon and two-photon interference terms, and an interpretation of this is given. The contributions from the single- and the two-photon states as well as the total interference are analysed numerically for various interatomic distances and times. The contribution from a two-photon state is mostly larger than that from a single-photon state except when the atomic electric dipole is large, in which case the two contributions can be comparable. It is shown that the emission patterns from the two interacting atoms provide more information on atom–atom correlations than the decay time evolution of the atomic states population does. The number of interference fringes and the distance between them depend on the interatomic distance in a similar fashion to Young's interference fringes.
We consider collective emission of a single photon from a cloud of NNN two-level atoms (one excited, $N\ensuremath{-}1$ ground state). For a dense cloud the problem is reduced to finding eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of an integral equation. We discuss an exact analytical solution of this many-atom problem for a spherically symmetric atomic cloud. Some eigenstates decay much faster then the single atom decay rate, while the others undergo very slow decay. We show that virtual processes yield a small effect on the evolution of rapidly decaying states. However, they change the long time dynamics from exponential decay into a power-law behavior which can be observed experimentally. For trapped states virtual processes are much more important yielding additional decay channels which results in a slow decay of the otherwise trapped states. We also show that quantum mechanical treatment of spontaneous emission of weakly excited atomic ensemble is analogous to emission of NNN classical harmonic oscillators.
We study cooperative single-photon spontaneous emission from three multilevel atoms with one of them being excited for different atomic configurations in optical vector theory. The dynamic evolution is solved by finding the eigenvalues of a 3 \ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{} 3 matrix, and then the relevant decay rates and Lamb shifts are obtained analytically. It is shown that the symmetry of atomic configuration has a big influence on the super-radiance of the system. To obtain strong super-radiance requires not only the distances among the three atoms to be much shorter than the wavelength, but also to have symmetrical distribution. We also calculate the emission spectra and find that it normally has three peaks, but it has two peaks under the equilateral-triangle configuration.