Observation of quantum phase noise in a laser oscillator

Raymond Arrathoon, Anthony E.. Siegman

Raymond Arrathoon, Anthony E.. Siegman

Samuel Böhringer, Fabian Kienle, Richard Lopp

We derive the equations of motion of arbitrary momentum-dependent observables for a fully first-quantized, driven two-level atom in a linear potential under the presence of a stochastic laser phase. In particular, we show that such momentum-dependent observables evolve under stochastic differential equations (SDEs) in the form of geometrical Brownian motion and find that these SDEs reduce to ordinary differential equations (ODEs) for the expectation values under white laser phase noise. As an example, we solve these ODEs numerically and determine the effect of laser phase noise on Rabi oscillations including quantized center-of-mass degrees of freedom of the atom. Moreover, the SDE formalism we derive holds for any phase noise source and can also be applied to extended noise models such as color noise.

Anthony E.. Siegman, Raymond Arrathoon

Received 12 February 1968DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.20.901©1968 American Physical Society

M. Lax, W. H. Louisell