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Cavity-Modified Collective Rayleigh Scattering of Exactly Two Atoms

René Reimann, Wolfgang Alt, Tobias Kampschulte, Tobias Macha, Lothar Ratschbacher, Natalie Thau, Seokchan Yoon, Dieter Meschede

Published Jan 1, 2015• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We report on observing cooperative radiation of exactly two neutral atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity. The roles of cavity backaction and of the relative atom-field coupling phases are discussed. Our results are important for the realization of phase-sensitive cavity QED protocols.
DOI
10.1364/cleo_qels.2015.fw1a.2

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We report on the observation of cooperative radiation of exactly two neutral atoms strongly coupled to the single mode field of an optical cavity, which is close to the lossless-cavity limit. Monitoring the cavity output power, we observe constructive and destructive interference of collective Rayleigh scattering for certain relative distances between the two atoms. Because of cavity backaction onto the atoms, the cavity output power for the constructive two-atom case (N=2) is almost equal to the single-emitter case (N=1), which is in contrast to free-space where one would expect an N^{2} scaling of the power. These effects are quantitatively explained by a classical model as well as by a quantum mechanical model based on Dicke states. We extract information on the relative phases of the light fields at the atom positions and employ advanced cooling to reduce the jump rate between the constructive and destructive atom configurations. Thereby we improve the control over the system to a level where the implementation of two-atom entanglement schemes involving optical cavities becomes realistic.
We report on the observation of cooperative radiation of exactly two neutral atoms strongly coupled to the single mode field of an optical cavity, which is close to the lossless-cavity limit. Monitoring the cavity output power, we observe constructive and destructive interference of collective Rayleigh scattering for certain relative distances between the two atoms. Because of cavity backaction onto the atoms, the cavity output power for the constructive two-atom case (N=2N=2N=2) is almost equal to the single-emitter case (N=1N=1N=1), which is in contrast to free-space where one would expect an N2N^2N2 scaling of the power. These effects are quantitatively explained by a classical model as well as by a quantum mechanical model based on Dicke states. We extract information on the relative phases of the light fields at the atom positions and employ advanced cooling to reduce the jump rate between the constructive and destructive atom configurations. Thereby we improve the control over the system to a level where the implementation of two-atom entanglement schemes involving optical cavities becomes realistic.
We report on the observation of collective atomic recoil lasing and superradiant Rayleigh scattering with ultracold and Bose-Einstein condensed atoms in an optical ring cavity. Both phenomena are based on instabilities evoked by the collective interaction of light with cold atomic gases. This publication clarifies the link between the two effects. The observation of superradiant behavior with thermal clouds as hot as several tens of $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}$ proves that the phenomena are driven by the cooperative dynamics of the atoms, which is strongly enhanced by the presence of the ring cavity.
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Macroscopic arrays of cold atoms trapped in optical cavities can reach the strong atom-light collective coupling regime thanks to the simultaneous interactions of the cavity mode with the atomic ensemble. In a recent work [R. J. Lewis-Swan, D. Barberena, J. A. Muniz, J. R. K. Cline, D. Young, J. K. Thompson, and A. M. Rey, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 193602 (2020)] we reported a protocol that takes advantage of the strong and collective atom-light interactions in cavity QED systems for precise electric-field sensing in the optical domain. We showed that it can provide between 10 and 20 dB of metrological gain over the standard quantum limit in current cavity QED experiments operating with long-lived alkaline-earth atoms. Here, we give a more in depth discussion of the protocol using both exact analytical calculations and numerical simulations, and describe the precise conditions under which the predicted enhancement holds after thoroughly accounting for both photon loss and spontaneous emission, natural decoherence mechanisms in current experiments. The analysis presented here not only serves to benchmark the protocol and its utility in cavity QED arrays but also sets the conditions required for its applicability in other experimental platforms such as arrays of trapped ions.
We study an atom-cavity system in which the cavity has several degenerate transverse modes. Mode-resolved cavity transmission spectroscopy reveals well-resolved atom-cavity resonances for several cavity modes, a signature of collective strong coupling for the different modes. Furthermore, the experiment shows that the cavity modes are coupled via the atomic ensemble contained in the cavity. The experimental observations are supported by a detailed theoretical analysis. The work paves the way to the use of interacting degenerate modes in cavity-based quantum information processing, where qubits corresponding to different cavity modes interact via an atom shared by the two modes. Our results are also relevant to the experimental realization of quantum spin glasses with ultracold atoms.