Results are presented from an experiment on the observation of an induced microwave transition 37 P -37 S in sodium Rydberg atoms under the action of 30 thermal photons in a microwave cavity. The measured value of the transition rate (4±1.5)×10 4 s −1 agrees with the calculated value.
Microwave Hanle effect has been studied in sodium Rydberg atoms for the first time. Spontaneous emission of the microwave transition 37P3/2 yields 37S1/2 at 70.166 GHz was replaced by an induced transition from a pulsed microwave source. Good agreement with the theoretical calculations has been found. The widths and shapes of observed resonances were defined by the spectral widths of the pulsed microwave radiation and parameters of laser excitation of the initial 37P3/2 state. The interference occurred in the scheme of transitions similar to the Mach- Zehnder optical interferometer.
Rydberg atoms excited in microwave resonators are ideal systems to test quantum electrodynamics on an unusual scale.1 Owing to their very large electric dipole sizes, these atoms are indeed coupled so strongly to infrared and millimeter-wave radiation that the field of a few photons—ultimately the one of a single photon—stored in a cavity is large enough to induce important transition rates during the atomic time of flight across the cavity. As a result quantum radiative effects are observed in a range of frequencies where usual atomic systems behave as purely classical radiators. The enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate of a single atom prepared in a tuned cavity has already been observed.2 For a resonant cavity with very small losses, a point should be reached where the atom can no longer decay but instead reversibly oscillates between the two states involved in the transition resonant with the cavity mode. Experiments aimed at the observation of this new regime of quantum electrodynamics evolution are under way
A microwave analog of the interference Hanle effect has been studied in sodium Rydberg atoms. Spontaneous emission of the microwave transition ${37P}_{3/2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{37S}_{1/2}$ at 70.166 GHz was replaced by an induced transition from a pulsed microwave source. A dependence of population of the 37S1/2 state on the magnetic field was recorded in various conditions. Good agreement with the theoretical calculations has been found. The widths and shapes of observed resonances were defined by the spectral widths of the pulsed microwave radiation and parameters of laser excitation of the initial 37P3/2 state. The quantum beats of magnetic sublevels appeared in the signals when the polarization of exciting laser emission was orthogonal to the magnetic field, and the interference occurred in the scheme of transitions similar to the Mach-Zehnder optical interferometer.
Enhanced two-photon decay has been observed for the first time in an electric dipole transition between two Rydberg levels coupled to a single mode of a strongly driven microwave cavity. This was achieved by dynamically suppressing the otherwise dominant single-photon decay. The experiment is compared with a dressed-state model which treats the external driving field exactly. Cavity-induced emission and absorption rates are calculated to fourth order in the interaction to include two-photon processes, and are found to fit the experimental data well.
We present various experiments involving Rydberg atoms interacting with resonant microwave electromagnetic fields inside a cavity, allowing to check different features of the theory presented in the previous paper. We first describe experiments about superradiant emission by Rydberg states in the cavity, also called transient Rydberg atoms maser ; the evolution of the system is detected either on the populations by selective field ionization technique or on the microwave field itself by heterodyne detection. Very low thresholds, down to 100 atoms, for the maser emission have been observed. We then describe various aspects of collective absorption of radiation by very excited atoms including the observation of Rabi nutation in a small applied resonant field, the study of the quantum efficiency of this set-up considered as a microwave photon counter, and finally the unexpected characteristics of the blackbody radiation absorption in the cavity.