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Physical Review A

Effect of the counterrotating terms on polarizability in atom-field interactions

Dawei Wang, Aijun Li, Li‐Gang Wang, Shi-Yao Zhu, Muhammad Suhail Zubairy

Published Dec 9, 2009• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The effect of the counterrotating terms on the linear polarizability is investigated, which is responsible for the validity of the optical theorem in all frequency regions. A unitary transformation method [H. Zheng, S. -Y. Zhu, and M.S. Zubairy, Rev. Lett. 101, 200404 (2008)] is adopted to overcome the difficulty brought in by the counterrotating terms, which yields a rotating-wave-approximation-like Hamiltonian with modified coupling constant due to the counterrotating terms. A simple expression for the polarizability is obtained, which is a sum of resonant (minus sign) and antiresonant (plus sign) parts, and from which the role of the counterrotating terms and quantum interference between the counterrotating terms and rotating terms at far off-resonance are discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.80.063826

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The effect of the counterrotating terms on the linear polarizability is investigated, which is responsible for the validity of the optical theorem in all frequency regions. A unitary transformation method [H. Zheng, S. -Y. Zhu, and M.S. Zubairy, Rev. Lett. 101, 200404 (2008)] is adopted to overcome the difficulty brought in by the counterrotating terms, which yields a rotating-wave-approximation-like Hamiltonian with modified coupling constant due to the counterrotating terms. A simple expression for the polarizability is obtained, which is a sum of resonant (minus sign) and antiresonant (plus sign) parts, and from which the role of the counterrotating terms and quantum interference between the counterrotating terms and rotating terms at far off-resonance are discussed.
The effect of spontaneous decay on the linear polarizability of an atom is typically included by adding imaginary parts to the frequency denominators that appear in the Kramers-Heisenberg formula. It has been shown for a two-level atom with radiative broadening that these (frequency-dependent) imaginary parts must be included in both the resonant and antiresonant frequency denominators [P. W. Milonni and R. W. Boyd, Phys. Rev. A 69, 023814 (2004)]; however, the expression obtained by Milonni and Boyd for the polarizability does not satisfy the optical theorem, if contributions from non-rotating-wave terms are included. In this paper, we derive a more accurate expression for the polarizability. The calculations are rather complicated and require that we go beyond the standard Weisskopf-Wigner approximation. We present calculations carried out in both the Heisenberg and Schr\"odinger pictures, since they offer complementary methods for understanding the dynamics of the Rayleigh scattering associated with the atomic polarizability. Moreover, it is shown that the shifts associated with the excited state are not the Lamb shifts of an isolated atom, but depend on the dynamics of the atom-field interaction. Our results for the polarizability are consistent with those obtained recently by Loudon and Barnett using a Green's-function approach.
The polarizability of a two-level atom in the presence of radiative damping alone is derived by a Green function calculation. The rotating-wave approximation is not made, either in the interaction of the atom with the incident light or in its interaction with the scattered optical field. In contrast to previous work, the derivation takes account of the modification of the system ground state brought about by the non-rotating-wave part of the latter interaction. The final expression satisfies the optical theorem in addition to the other general requirements on the polarizability.
We considered the semiclassical Rabi model: a two-level atom fixed at a position and interacting with a classical, monochromatic electromagnetic field. In resonance and for an arbitrary initial state of the system, we obtained an approximate, analytic solution that takes into account the counterrotating terms and that is accurate as long as the Rabi frequency is smaller than or equal to 1/21/21/2 (1/41/41/4) of the angular frequency of the field and 111 (101010) Rabi oscillations are considered. In addition, the approximate solution has the same level of complexity as that obtained with the rotating-wave-approximation (RWA) and the approximate solution also leads to a simple criterion that allows one to determine the accuracy of the solution in the RWA. We found that the approximate solution is composed of the the solution in the RWA plus terms that oscillate at the angular frequency of the field and at the Rabi frequency. Moreover, these corrections are proportional to the Rabi frequency divided by two times the angular frequency of the field.
We experimentally investigate the non-Markovianity problems in a quantum channel implemented by an all-optical setup. The quantum channel simulates the dynamics of a two-level (qubit) system surrounded by bosonic modes, with the system-environment interaction treated without applying the rotating-wave approximation (RWA). Therefore, it allows us to demonstrate the important role of counterrotating-wave terms in influencing the memory effects of the environment. The experimental and theoretical results are in good agreement and show quite different behaviors of the non-Markovianity measure between RWA and non-RWA channels. One can find the nonmonotonic dependence of the non-Markovianity measure on the coupling and detuning parameters in the non-RWA case, which is attributed to the competing mechanisms caused by the counterrotating-wave terms. We emphasize that the non-RWA channel provides a more clear description of the open-system dynamics and the counterrotating-wave terms are indispensable in the study of non-Markovianity.
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.