Atom–Light Interactions for Independent Atoms

Jonathan D. Pritchard

Manuel Bojer, André Cidrim, Romain Bachelard +1 more

We investigate the light statistics of an ensemble of independent motionless two-level atoms in a product state. We identify the conditions under which the cold atomic ensemble emits thermal light statistics characterized by the Gaussian Moment Theorem. For the theorem to hold, we derive for each correlation order two conditions on the atom number and the ratio of coherent to incoherent light emission. We further discuss their validity for atoms either in a pure or mixed state. Our results contribute to the understanding of the generation of thermal light by two-level atoms without interactions among the emitters.

Gagik Yu. Kryuchkyan, Mihai Macovei, Christoph H. Keitel

We investigate deflections, spatial entanglement, and localization of an atomic beam due to its interaction with two modes of a standing electromagnetic field in an optical cavity. It is demonstrated that the deflection properties of an atom passing through two crossed standing light waves are crucially modified when photon-number correlated states of light are used instead of independent waves. Depending on the atom-light interaction scheme, various periodic two-dimensional patterns in a subwavelength regime are reported.

Galina A. Nemova

P. van der Straten, Harold J. Metcalf

Adam Čepil

In our work, we focus on the experimental demonstration of two complementary approaches to enhancing the interaction between photons and atoms at the level of individual photons and 40Ca+ ions. We implement a scheme in which the observation of light interference scattered by several trapped atomic ions is further enhanced due to interference with their mirror images. The control of the corresponding collective coherent optical scattering and the possibility of observing the interaction with light emitted by many independent ions modified by optical boundary conditions promises a feasible approach to the effective realization of the interaction between light and matter or to the controlled observation of quantum electrodynamics phenomena with many atoms.