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Laser Physics

Nonclassicality of resonance fluorescence via amplitude-intensity correlations

E. R. Marquina-Cruz, H. M. Castro-Beltrán

Published Feb 1, 2008• 14 citations

Abstract

Conditional homodyne detection (CHD) allows a fresh view of the nonclassicality of optical fields. A balanced homodyne detector replaces a photodetector in the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss setup of photon correlations, thus measuring a quadrature (amplitude) of the field on the cue of a photon detection. In CHD, both quadratures of a quantum field violate classical inequalities even if photon correlations look classical. We calculate the amplitude-intensity correlations for the resonance fluorescence of a two-level atom and a three-level atom in the V configuration, notable producers of quantum effects (antibunching, squeezing, and sub-Poissonian statistics). In the V atom, where we consider that the ground state is coupled strongly (weakly) to a short (long) lived state, the strong transition resembles the two-level atom features, albeit with larger oscillations and a slower decay. However, the autocorrelation of the fluorescence of the weak transition is clearly asymmetric around a zero delay, indicating the breakdown of detailed balance, and violating the inequalities by orders of magnitude due to the low photon flux. Cross correlations of strong and weak channels also display antibunching and the loss of bounds.

DOI: 10.1134/s1054660x08020102

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Conditional homodyne detection (CHD) allows a fresh view of the nonclassicality of optical fields. A balanced homodyne detector replaces a photodetector in the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss setup of photon correlations, thus measuring a quadrature (amplitude) of the field on the cue of a photon detection. In CHD, both quadratures of a quantum field violate classical inequalities even if photon correlations look classical. We calculate the amplitude-intensity correlations for the resonance fluorescence of a two-level atom and a three-level atom in the V configuration, notable producers of quantum effects (antibunching, squeezing, and sub-Poissonian statistics). In the V atom, where we consider that the ground state is coupled strongly (weakly) to a short (long) lived state, the strong transition resembles the two-level atom features, albeit with larger oscillations and a slower decay. However, the autocorrelation of the fluorescence of the weak transition is clearly asymmetric around a zero delay, indicating the breakdown of detailed balance, and violating the inequalities by orders of magnitude due to the low photon flux. Cross correlations of strong and weak channels also display antibunching and the loss of bounds.

Abstract We study phase-dependent fluctuations of the resonance fluorescence of a single Λ-type three-level atom in the regime near coherent population trapping, i.e. alongside the two-photon detuning condition. To this end, we employ the method of conditional homodyne detection (CHD) which considers squeezing in the weak driving regime, and extends to non-Gaussian fluctuations for saturating and strong fields. In this framework, and using estimated parameter settings of the resonance fluorescence of a single trapped 138 Ba + ion, the light scattered from the probe transitions is found to manifest a non-classical character and conspicuous asymmetric third-order fluctuations in the amplitude-intensity correlation of CHD.

Using master equation and quantum Monte Carlo wavefunction approaches, we study the circumstances surrounding the emergence and degradation of the elusive squeezing of fluctuations in two-level atom resonance fluorescence. For its measurement we suggest conditional homodyne detection (CHD) [G.T. Foster, L.A. Orozco, H.M. Castro-Beltran, H.J. Carmichael, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, pp. 3149-3152, 2000], which is nearly independent of detector efficiencies, which have harmed previous attemps. Squeezing in resonance fluorescence requires a weak laser, so the average interval between emitted photons is much longer than the regression time to the steady state; here, the spectrum of the out-of-phase quadrature is a negative peak. In CHD, moderate fields generate a non-zero third-order correlation in the dipole fluctuations that contaminates squeezing, making the noise non- Gaussian. If the probability to emit two and even three close photons is still small the additional contribution is also negative, helping to make the full spectrum a bit larger and easier to measure. Strong driving spreads the photoemission distribution, which destroys squeezing, and the third order fluctuations become responsible for the non-classicality of the fluorescence.

Electron shelving gives rise to bright and dark periods in the resonance fluorescence of a three-level atom. The spectral signature of such blinking is a very narrow inelastic peak on top of the two-level atom spectrum. Here, we investigate theoretically phase-dependent fluctuations (e.g., squeezing) of intermittent resonance fluorescence in the frameworks of balanced and conditional homodyne detection (BHD and CHD, respectively). In BHD, the squeezing is reduced significantly in size and Rabi frequency range compared to that for a two-level atom. The sharp peak is found only in the spectrum of the squeezed quadrature, splitting the negative broader squeezing peak for weak fields. CHD correlates the BHD signal with the detection of emitted photons. It is thus sensitive to third-order fluctuations of the field, produced by the atom-laser nonlinearity, that cause noticeable deviations from the second-order BHD results. For weak driving, the third-order spectrum is negative, enlarging the squeezing peak but also reducing the sharp peak. For strong driving, the spectrum is dominated by third-order fluctuations, with a large sharp peak and the sidebands becoming dispersive. Finally, the addition of third-order fluctuations makes the integrated spectra of both quadratures equal in magnitude in CHD, in contrast to those by BHD. A simple mathematical approach allows us to obtain very accurate analytical results in the shelving regime.

We consider intensity-field correlation functions for a two-level atom in a degenerate optical parametric oscillator (OPO), which would result from a conditioned homodyne measurement. Analytic results are obtained in the limit of weak driving fields using quantum trajectory methods for both the transmitted and fluorescent fields. This system is unique in that after detection of a photon, it is known that one excitation is in the system, in either the atom or cavity mode. We find large violations of inequalities satisfied by classical fields, for both transmitted and fluorescent fields. This is in contrast to the usual cavity QED system of an atom in a driven cavity where we do not find nonclassical behavior in the intensity-field correlation function in fluorescence. This is understood in terms of a relationship between the intensity-field correlation function and the second-order intensity correlation function, as well as the different amount of field-atom entanglement in the two systems. We show that for weak-field cavity QED one must have photon bunching to have nonclassical behavior in the intensity-field correlation function. We compare our results to those of an ordinary OPO. Finally, we also consider cross correlations, where we examine the transmitted (fluorescent) field conditioned by detection of a fluorescent (transmitted) photon.