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Physical Review A

Quantum interference due to energy shifts and its effect on spontaneous emission

Zheng-Hong Li, Dawei Wang, Hang Zheng, Shi-Yao Zhu, Muhammad Suhail Zubairy

Published Nov 3, 2010• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the quantum interference in spontaneous emission with the inclusion of counterrotating terms and energy shifts. The energy shifts come from the emission and then reabsorption of virtual photons as well as the real photon emission. We show that the quantum interference resulting from the energy shifts has significant influence on the effective decay rates of the two levels, even when the transition dipole elements are the same and the energy separation of the two levels is small. We also show that the energy shift has substantial influence on the spectrum emitted by the atom. The result is valid in the long time limit. The effect of the energy shift can be observed at the time scale of 1 over the atomic decay rate. We suggest an experiment to test the effect of quantum interference because of energy shifts on the emission spectrum.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.82.050501

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We study the quantum interference in spontaneous emission with the inclusion of counterrotating terms and energy shifts. The energy shifts come from the emission and then reabsorption of virtual photons as well as the real photon emission. We show that the quantum interference resulting from the energy shifts has significant influence on the effective decay rates of the two levels, even when the transition dipole elements are the same and the energy separation of the two levels is small. We also show that the energy shift has substantial influence on the spectrum emitted by the atom. The result is valid in the long time limit. The effect of the energy shift can be observed at the time scale of 1 over the atomic decay rate. We suggest an experiment to test the effect of quantum interference because of energy shifts on the emission spectrum.
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.
Quantum interference and coherence lead to many interesting phenomenon and applications in quantum optics. In this dissertation, we study the quantum coherent properties in the following systems and aspects. We first investigate the optical bistability in a combined cavity-cold atoms system. In such a system the atom-photon interaction provides an optical lattice to the atoms and affects the mechanical motion of the atoms while atoms induce a position dependent phase shift on the cavity field. This highly nonlinearity induces optical bistability of intra-cavity photon number with respect to the pumping light added along the cavity axis. We show that the presence of this bistability can be controlled by a second pumping field added perpendicular to the cavity axis. It is also found that the critical input intensity of switching from one branch of bistability to the other depends on the the way of the field being added. This behavior is similar to the anomalous switching of the dispersive optical bistability of atomic media in the cavity. We also study the effect of counter-rotating terms in the control of spontaneous emission. We make use of a unitary transformation method and investigate the effect of dynamic energy shifts on the spontaneous emission modification via quantum interference in a four-level atomic system. We show that the counter-rotating terms, which are normally neglected in the usual investigation of atomic systems, do produce a significant influence on the evolution of the atomic amplitudes and the emission spectrum. This effect of counter-rotating terms can be observed in the time scale of the decay rate even when the dipole moments of the two upper levels are orthogonal to each other. The effect of counter-rotating terms on the spontaneous emission in a 3-D anisotropic photonic crystal is also discussed. It is shown that the behavior of the emission is similar to the case making rotating wave approximation, i.e., the localized and propagating fields are also separated by two characteristic atomic transition frequencies. However, the two characteristic frequencies are shifted due to the full Lamb shift which is obtained with counter-rotating terms being included in the Hamiltonian. We also utilize the unitary transformation method to show how the Lamb shift in a multi-level atom can be controlled by a driving field. Finally, we propose a subwavelength atom localization scheme for an atom located in a standing-wave field. The strategy is based on the observation that the photon statistics of resonance fluorescence depends on the position-dependent Rabi frequency.
Quantum interference in spontaneous emission from a four-level atom is investigated with the counter-rotating terms and the energy shifts included. The atom has two upper levels which are coupled to a common lower level by the same vacuum modes and are driven by a coherent field to an auxiliary level. The effect of the counter-rotating terms in the coupling through the vacuum modes is taken into account by a unitary transformation method. We show how the quantum interference due to the energy shifts affects the spontaneous emission.
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.
A general expression for the spectrum of cascade spontaneous emission from an arbitrary multilevel system is presented. Effects of the quantum interference of photons emitted in different transitions are analyzed. These effects are especially essential when the transition frequencies are close. Several examples are considered: (i) Three-level system; (ii) Harmonic oscillator; (iii) System with equidistant levels and equal rates of the spontaneous decay for all the transitions; (iv) Dicke superradiance model.
In this paper, we study cooperative two-photon transitions in a system of two (nonoverlapping) atoms for two processes: two-photon spontaneous emission and two-photon resonance fluorescence. Expressions are obtained for the energy shifts and decay rates due to the interaction of the atoms with and via the field. The altered decay rates signal the existence of superradiance and subradiance in the two-atom system. The energy shifts of the single-excitation states are found to be proportional to ${\mathit{R}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}6}$ for small atomic separations R, and to ${\mathit{R}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}2}$ for large separations.