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Journal of Optics B Quantum and Semiclassical Optics

Measurement of the Wigner function of a cavity field via Autler-Townes spectroscopy

Mohammad Mahmoudi, H. Tajalli, Muhammad Suhail Zubairy

Published Jun 1, 2000• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We show that the Wigner fuction of a cavity field can be constructed from the spontaneous emission spectrum in driven three-level atomic systems. We consider two configurations, the upper- and lower-level couplings, in which the driving field is the quantized field inside a cavity. In the proposed method, the Wigner function of the driving field is recovered in a straightforward manner, without much mathematical manipulation of the experimental data, from the spontaneous emission spectra.

DOI
10.1088/1464-4266/2/3/315

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We show that the Wigner fuction of a cavity field can be constructed from the spontaneous emission spectrum in driven three-level atomic systems. We consider two configurations, the upper- and lower-level couplings, in which the driving field is the quantized field inside a cavity. In the proposed method, the Wigner function of the driving field is recovered in a straightforward manner, without much mathematical manipulation of the experimental data, from the spontaneous emission spectra.
We present a scheme to reconstruct a two-mode entangled state in a high-QQQ cavity from the spontaneous emission spectrum in a driven four-level atomic system. The two modes of the cavity field drive the upper three levels of the atom and thus the spontaneous emission spectrum contains the information about the photon statistics of the cavity field. Wigner function of the driving field is recovered from the photon statistics in a straightforward manner.
A method for the reconstruction of photon statistics and even the Wigner function of a quantized cavity field state is proposed. The method is based on the measurement of momentum distribution of two-level atoms in the Raman–Nath regime. Both the cases of resonant and off-resonant atom–field interaction are considered. The Wigner function is reconstructed by displacing the photon statistics of the cavity field. This reconstruction method is straightforward and does not need much mathematical manipulation of experimental data.
We establish a connection between the simple harmonic oscillator and a two-level atom interacting with resonant, quantized cavity and strong driving fields, which suggests an experiment to measure the harmonic-oscillator's probability distribution function. To achieve this, we calculate the Autler-Townes spectrum by coupling the system to a third level. We find that there are two different regions of the atomic dynamics depending on the ratio of the Rabi frequency ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{c}$ of the cavity field to that of the Rabi frequency $\ensuremath{\Omega}$ of the driving field. For ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{c}<\ensuremath{\Omega}$ and moderate coupling of the transition to the cavity mode the spectral peaks are composed of multiplets. A quantized dressed-atom approach provides a simple explanation of the spectral features and shows that the oscillations in the spectral components arise from the oscillations of the population distribution in the dressed states. The observation of these features would provide evidence for the quantum nature of the cavity field. The distribution is an analog of the harmonic-oscillator probability distribution function, and should be experimentally observable. For ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{c}>~\ensuremath{\Omega}$ there is no Autler-Townes splitting and the spectrum is composed of a single peak located at the frequency of the probe transition. We show that this effect results from the collapse of the atom to the ground state, which has been predicted by Alsing, Cardimona, and Carmichael [Phys. Rev. A 45, 1793 (1992)] for a two-level atom in a lossless cavity.
The damped and coherently-driven JaynesndashndashndashCummings model
We investigate the influence of a single-mode cavity on the Autler–Townes doublet that arises when a three-level atom is strongly driven by a laser field tuned to one of the atomic transitions and probed by a tunable, weak field coupled to the other transition. We assume that the cavity mode is coupled to the driven transition and the cavity and laser frequencies are equal to the atomic transition frequency. We find that the Autler–Townes spectrum can have one, two or three peaks depending on the relative magnitudes of the Rabi frequencies of the cavity and driving fields. We show that, in order to understand the three-peaked spectrum, it is necessary to go beyond the secular approximation, leading to interesting quantum interference effects. We find that the positions and relative intensities of the three spectral components are affected strongly by the atom–cavity coupling strength g and the cavity damping κ. For an increasing g and/or decreasing κ the triplet evolves into a single peak. This results in 'undressing' of the system such that the atom collapses into its ground state. We interpret the spectral features in terms of the semiclassical dressed-atom model, and also provide complementary views of the cavity effects in terms of quantum Langevin equations and the fully quantized, 'double-dressing' model.
Entanglement of the atom and field leads towards the measurement of the state of the atom or field depending on the kind of measurement made. Taking advantage of this fact, we propose spectroscopic methods for the single atom localization within the subwavelength domain of the optical standing wave field. \n \nWhen a two-level atom interacts with some intense radiation field the spectrum of the scattered light signal exhibits a three-peak Mollow spectrum. We propose a scheme of atom localization based on the resonance fluorescence from a two-level atom interacting with a standing wave field. The Rabi frequency is considered to be position dependent and therefore, the spontaneously emitted photon carries the information about the center-of-mass motion of the atom. This leads to the localization of the single atom by measuring the frequency of the spontaneously emitted photon even during the passage of the atom through the standing wave field. We predict a spatial resolution in position information of up to λ/60 where λ is the optical wavelength. \n \nDetuning of the coherent field with the atomic transition plays an important role in the characterization of the peaks present in the Autler- Townes spectrum of a three-level atom. Strong line narrowing is observed in one of the peaks of the Autler- Townes doublet depending on the choice of the detuning. We investigate how this detuning effects the position information of the atom inside the standing wave field in upper-level and lower-level coupling schemes of Autler- Townes microscopy. We show an enhancement in precision position measurement by factor of at least 4 in upper-level coupling scheme due to the quantum interference phenomenon. This enhancement is not observed in lower-level coupling scheme where the quantum interference is not taking place. \n \nWe also consider a system where a three-level atom is interacting with a monochromatic radiation field in such a way that the decay takes place from upper level to the intermediate level with a rate T and from intermediate level to lower level at a rate γ. This type of system exhibits a non stationary scattered light signal. We report the results of the spontaneous emission spectrum for non stationary scattered light signal by using the definition of time-dependent physical spectrum. This is a rare example of problems where time-dependent physical spectrum can be calculated exactly. We study the characteristics of the spontaneous spectrum for a resonant and off-resonant case and show that this physical spectrum recovers the results of earlier work quite successfully. We also show that the decay rate r disturbs the atomic coherence and finally eliminates the dark line from the center of the spontaneous spectrum. Here we only consider upper-level coupling case for the time-dependent spontaneous spectrum because in lower-level coupling case the system automatically evolved a pumping mechanism due to the coupling of ground level to the upper level via radiation field. Thus a steady-state limit exists in lower-level coupling scheme. \n \nWe investigate the phenomenon of atom localization by using the non stationary Autler-Townes microscopy. The decay rate T reduces the precision in position measurement which is consistent with the results of the non stationary spontaneous emission spectrum. This is due to the fact that for the upper-level coupling case, the standing wave field is coupled to atomic transition and it induces a coherence in the upper-level atomic transition but the spontaneous decay from the upper level to the intermediate level disturbs this coherence. When the effect of the spontaneous decay dominates the coherence effect the quantum interference phenomenon vanishes and thus the precision in localization reduces.
There is increasing interest in the photon statistics and spectroscopic properties of the radiation from atoms confined in an optical cavity. Effects such as the cavity enhancement and inhibition of spontaneous emission, which were first observed using microwave cavities, have recently been measured at optical frequencies.1 Recent measurements of squeezing and the dynamic effects of single-quantum-level splittings also demonstrate the possibilities for quantum-statistical studies of coupled atom-cavity systems at optical frequencies.2 We study a single two-level atom confined inside an optical cavity which is driven by coherent light in resonance with both cavity and atom. For weak driving field intensities we have calculated the spectrum of the light transmitted by the cavity and fluorescence out the sides of the cavity.