Three-photon interference spectra in four-level atomic systems

Constantine Mavroyannis

Constantine Mavroyannis

Constantine Mavroyannis

We have calculated the interference spectra of a single electron in the excited state of a four-level atom interacting with three laser fields, where two of them are on two-photon resonance with the three levels forming a `Λ' scheme while the third laser operates between the second ground and the second excited states of the atom. It is shown that in the low-intensity limit of all three laser fields, the third laser field destroys the destructive interference that occurs between the spontaneous radiative decay and the process arising from the combined field of all the three laser fields. The result is that the overall intensity of the peak at the centre of the line depends on the strength of the third laser field and it takes negative values indicating that light amplification without population inversion (LAWI) is likely to occur at the one-photon frequency. The antisymmetric two-photon state of the two lower levels as well as the two-photon process, where one laser photon is absorbed and another laser photon is emitted simultaneously by the second excited state of the atom, is found to exhibit LAWI at the one-photon frequency. The derived results are graphically presented and discussed.

M. A. Antón, Óscar G. Calderón, F. Carreño

In this paper we investigate the resonance fluorescence, the squeezing, and the absorption spectra of a laser-driven four-level atom consisting of three closely spaced upper levels decaying to a common lower level. The three upper levels are coupled by the same vacuum modes to the lower level leading to spontaneously generated coherence effects. High population inversion and extremely narrow emission lines are obtained with moderate Rabi frequencies, which are a direct consequence of decay-induced interferences. The fluorescent field is shown to exhibit two-mode squeezing in the in-phase quadrature. Squeezing in both quadratures simultaneously at different frequencies is greatly enhanced when quantum interference is accounted for. We also examine the absorption spectrum of a weak field and demonstrate that quantum interference can induce two prominent and nearly transparent holes where the slope of the refractive index is very steep. This special situation could allow the simultaneous propagation of two weak pulses with different frequencies, which could be feasibly exploited towards the realization of the entanglement of two photons.

E. Gaižauskas, G. Gedvilas

Jiepeng Zhang, Yifu Zhu

Atomic coherence and interference manifested by electromagentically induced transparency (EIT) and coherent population trapping (CPT) plays an important role in the current studies of atom-photon interactions and has found numerous applications in optical physics. EIT is created in a three-level atomic system by a coupling field and results in destructive interference between two excitation paths of a weak probe laser interacting with the atomic medium. This leads to suppressed linear absorption and rapidly varying atomic dispersion for the probe laser near the atomic resonance, which provides the platform for a variety of applications such as nonlinear optics at low light levels, slow light manipulation, and quantum state engineering for photons and atoms. Here we extend the simple three-level EIT system to more complicated and versatile configurations in a multi-level atomic system coupled by multiple laser fields. We show that with multiple excitation paths provided by different laser fields, phase-dependent quantum interference is induced: either constructive or destructive interference can be realized by varying the relative phases among the laser fields. Two specific examples are discussed. One is a three-level system coupled by bichromatic coupling and probe fields, in which the phase dependent interference between the resonant two-photon Raman transitions can be initiated and controlled. Another is a four-level system coupled by two coupling fields and two probe fields, in which a double-EIT configuration is created by the phase-dependent interference between three-photon and one-photon excitation processes. We analyze the coherently coupled multi-level atomic system and discuss the control parameters for the onset of constructive or destructive quantum interference. We describe two experiments performed with cold Rb atoms that can be approximately treated as the coherently coupled three-level and four-level atomic systems respectively. The experimental results show the phase-dependent quantum coherence and interference in the multi-level Rb atomic system, and agree with the theoretical calculations based on the coherently coupled three-level or four-level model system.