Correlated Decay of Atoms Interacting with Broad Band Squeezed Light

G. Massimo Palma, P. L. Knight

Crispin W. Gardiner

Phung Van Vinh, K. Wódkiewicz

G. Massimo Palma, P. L. Knight

We show that atoms interacting with a squeezed radiation field reservoir can exhibit phase-dependent population decay and relax into a highly correlated pure state, in striking difference to decay in a heat bath. We use a Heisenberg operator treatment of radiative transitions in a broadband squeezed light field described as a quantum white-noise field with correlated fluctuations to describe the modified decay of a single atom, and of two atoms cooperatively decaying in a squeezed vacuum. We compare this decay with that generated by a broadband thermal field which lacks the essential field-mode correlations characteristic of squeezing.

Mingliang Zou, Guang‐Can Guo

Z. Ficek

The influence of the dipole-dipole interaction on the final atomic state of a two-atom system driven by a coherent laser field and damped by a broad-band squeezed vacuum is discussed. It is shown that in the absence of a coherent laser field the final atomic state is independent of the dipole-dipole interaction and can be the pure two-atom squeezed state only if detuning of the squeezed vacuum field from atomic resonance is equal to zero. In the presence of a coherent laser field, the final atomic state depends on the dipole-dipole interaction. As the latter increases, the final atomic state shifts from a mixed state to the pure two-atom squeezed state. However, this happens only if the driving field and the squeezed field frequencies are tuned to the atomic transition frequency. For the driving field and the squeezed vacuum field frequencies detuned from atomic resonance the system decays into a mixed state irrespective of the dipole-dipole interaction between the atoms.