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Journal of Physics B Atomic and Molecular Physics

Interference effects in photon emission excited in collisions between identical atoms

Gerard Nienhuis

Published Sep 14, 1983• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The author evaluates interference effects arising in the photon emission excited by collisions between identical atoms. The general cause of the interference is the coherent superposition of radiation emitted by either one of the atoms. The author briefly discusses the relevance of these effects in several experimental situations of practical interest.

DOI
10.1088/0022-3700/16/17/001

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The author evaluates interference effects arising in the photon emission excited by collisions between identical atoms. The general cause of the interference is the coherent superposition of radiation emitted by either one of the atoms. The author briefly discusses the relevance of these effects in several experimental situations of practical interest.
Collective effects in the spontaneous emission pattern of two identical two-level atoms a fixed distance apart and sharing initially a single excitation are investigated. It is shown that the interference can take place even when it is known for certain which atom is excited initially. This interference is due solely to the atomic coherence established through multiple photon absorptions and reemissions and will disappear if it is ignored. The interference patterns with and without collective effects are compared for symmetric and antisymmetric initial states. The dark center from an antisymmetric state is shown both analytically and numerically.
We discuss the connection between quantum interference effects in optical beams and radiation fields emitted from atomic systems. We illustrate this connection by a study of the first- and second-order correlation functions of optical fields and atomic dipole moments. We explore the role of correlations between the emitting systems and present examples of practical methods to implement two systems with non-orthogonal dipole moments. We also derive general conditions for quantum interference in a two-atom system and for a control of spontaneous emission. The relation between population trapping and dark states is also discussed. Moreover, we present quantum dressed-atom models of cancellation of spontaneous emission, amplification on dark transitions, fluorescence quenching and coherent population trapping.
In this review the author discusses the major effects resulting from the modification of spontaneous emission by quantum interference. He begins in Section II by presenting elementary concepts and definitions of the first- and second-order correlation functions, which are frequently used in the analysis of the interference phenomena. Section III describes the master equation approach used for analyzing quantum interference effects in atomic and molecular systems. In Sections IV and V the author reviews the fundamental quentum interference effects in spontaneous emission and in coherently driven systems. He discusses different schemes for suppression of spontaneous emission and population trapping and gives an alternative explanation of these effects in the dressed-atom picture. Section VI deals with the problem of amplification on dark transitions, which are important for information processing without spontaneous emission. The effect of quantum interference on photon correlations is discussed in Section VII. Multilevel systems composed of two transitions with parallel dipole moments and methods for generating two transitions with nonorthogonal dipole moments are briefly discussed in Section VIII. The final section (Section IX) deals with the experimental demonstration of constructive and desctructive interference effects in a driven molecular system.
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.
Atomic fluorescence that accompanies the photodissociation of Ca2 molecules is modulated in time. This modulation was attributed to an interference between the fields emitted by the two atoms [1,2]. The effect of radiative resonant coupling between the atoms was considered to be negligible. It was suggested that the modulation of emission is analogous to the interaction of a single photon with two slits. However, the present article demonstrates that radiative resonant coupling is the main cause of the modulation, and the effect is not analogous to the interaction of single, space-time separated photons with two slits.
A comprehensive review is given of investigations, both theoretical and experimental, that demonstrate interference to take place even when the fields involved are produced by independent sources. The physical situation is rather different for coherent and incoherent fields. In the first case, where the sources are lasers, a conventional interference pattern can be observed which is adequately described by the classical theory. In the present paper, special attention is paid to the question of whether this interference persists when the two laser beams become strongly attenuated. In the second case, the sources are individual atoms excited by a pumping mechanism, that emit spontaneously and, hence, independently from each other. In those circumstances, no interference pattern can show up. However, it becomes evident from both the classical and the quantum-mechanical theory that interference effects can still be established by observing intensity correlations rather than the intensity itself. This point is discussed in greater detail. The pioneering experiments of Forrester, Gudmundson and Johnson, and Brown and Twiss are reviewed in this context. Especially interesting from the theoretical point of view is the case of two emitting atoms, since then the classical and the quantum-mechanical description differ significantly, the quantum theory predicting the intensity correlations to be distinctly stronger than those following from classical considerations. This specific quantum-mechanical feature is shown to be intimately connected with the corpuscular aspect of light.