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Laser Physics Letters

Phase-sensitive atomic dynamics in quantum light

Stepan N. Balybin, Roman V. Zakharov, Olga V. Tikhonova

Published Apr 13, 2018• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Interaction between a quantum electromagnetic field and a model Ry atom with possible transitions to the continuum and to the low-lying resonant state is investigated. Strong sensitivity of atomic dynamics to the phase of applied coherent and squeezed vacuum light is found. Methods to extract the quantum field phase performing the measurements on the atomic system are proposed. In the case of the few-photon coherent state high accuracy of the phase determination is demonstrated, which appears to be much higher in comparison to the usually used quantum-optical methods such as homodyne detection.

DOI
10.1088/1612-202x/aaafba

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Abstract Interaction between a quantum electromagnetic field and a model Ry atom with possible transitions to the continuum and to the low-lying resonant state is investigated. Strong sensitivity of atomic dynamics to the phase of applied coherent and squeezed vacuum light is found. Methods to extract the quantum field phase performing the measurements on the atomic system are proposed. In the case of the few-photon coherent state high accuracy of the phase determination is demonstrated, which appears to be much higher in comparison to the usually used quantum-optical methods such as homodyne detection.
Abstract The interaction of 3-level atom with two resonant quantum fields is investigated and an analytical solution is obtained. The effect of coherent population trapping and formation of a ‘dark’ state is analyzed. The atomic and field dynamics is found to be very sensitive to the photon statistics and relative phases of the initial quantum field states. The effect of quantum ‘death’ and ‘birth’ of atomic transitions and mean photon number evolution is demonstrated. Strong entanglement between atomic and field subsystems arising during the interaction is found and studied in details.
Weak squeezed vacuum light, especially resonant to the atomic transition, plays an important role in quantum storage and generation of various quantum sources. However, the general homodyne detection (HD) cannot determine weak squeezing due to the low signal to noise ratio and the limited resolution of the HD system. Here we provide an alternative method based on photon statistics measurement to determine the weak squeezing of the squeezed vacuum light generated from an optical parametric oscillator working far below the threshold. The approach is established the relationship between the squeezing parameter and the second-order degree of coherence. The theoretical analysis agrees well with the experiment results. The advantage of this method is that it provides a feasible and reliable experimental measure to determine the weak squeezing with high precision and the measurement is independent on the detection efficiency. This method can be used to measure other quantum features for various quantum states with extremely weak non-classicality.
The dynamics of a model Rydberg atom in a strong nonclassical electromagnetic field is investigated. The field-induced transitions to the continuum involving different numbers of photons (with intermediate states in the discrete spectrum) are taken into account and the specific features of ionisation in 'squeezed' field states are considered in comparison with the case of classical light. A significant decrease in the ionisation rate is found, which is caused by the interference stabilisation of the atomic system. The entanglement of the atomic and field subsystems, the temporal dynamics of the correlations found, and the possibility of measuring them are analysed.
In this thesis, a model system of quantum optics is experimentally studied - a single atom coupled to a high-finesse optical cavity. Upon excitation with laser pulses, the atom-cavity system undergoes vacuum Rabi oscillations between the atom and the cavity field. This is accompanied by the controlled emission of single photons. The optical resonator also enables efficient state detection of single neutral atoms. We introduce a method based on cavity-enhanced fluorescence and achieve a fidelity of 99.4 % for the detection of the atomic hyperfine state within 85 µs. Further, this thesis presents experiments on electromagnetically induced transparency with a single atom and on phase shaping of single photon wave packets. The atom-cavity system has promising applications in quantum information science.
Phase-sensitive squeezing in the resonance fluorescence of two-level atoms, that are coherently driven by a near-resonant laser field in free space, was observed recently (Lu et al 1998 Phys. Rev .L ett. 81 3635). This was accomplished via homodyne detection at a phase near ±45 ◦ relative to the driving field for strong off-resonant excitation of ‘long-lived’ atoms (where th ea tomic lifetime far exceeded the laser–atom interaction time, meaning that relaxation effects could be ignored). On the other hand, traditional theoretical predictions of phase-sensitive squeezing in the resonance fluorescence from two-level atoms have emphasized in- and out-of-phase (i.e., 0 ◦ and 90 ◦ ) quadratures, and weak, on-resonant excitation of ‘short-lived’ atoms (where the observation time for laser–atom interaction fa re xceeded the natural atomic lifetime, meaning that relaxation effects dominate). Here, we calculate the probability of a delayed-coincidence detection in the interference field of a fluorescing dipole with a local oscillator (LO). We show that, despite the strikingly different conditions in which squeezing occurs in short- and long-lived atoms, squeezing in both cases can be shown to arise from a joint detection of two photons which are related by a quantum jump in the following way: the first photodetection precipitates a quantum jump of the atom to the ground state, and the second measures the mean amplitude of the fluorescent field subsequent to the quantum jump.
In this dissertation we begin with a brief introduction to quantum optics concentrating on the topics of the noise of quantum optical states, quantum estimation theory, quantum interferometry and the atom-field interaction. This background is necessary for understanding the discussions in later chapters. In particular, quantum interferometry, which is optical interferometry when the light source is a quantum mechanical state, plays a central role in this dissertation. In Chapter 2 we discuss the phase estimation sensitivity of quantum metrology when photon loss is present. In Chapter 3 we extend the discussion to include the phase fluctuation of the system caused by the environment. We model our metrological system with the Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) and use a light field in the symmetric number-path entangled state as the source. In both chapters we use the parity operator as the detection scheme and show that it is optimal under pure dephasing. In Chapter 4 we discuss the application of quantum optical states in remote sensing and propose a new scheme for a quantum radar. Again, our scheme consists of a MZI and a coherent light source. It is shown that using only coherent states of light and quantum homodyne detection, super-resolving ranging and angle determination are achievable. Chapter 5 is devoted to the generation of a super-resolving single-photon number-path entangled state which may serve as a proof-of-principle prototype for quantum lithography. The repeated implementation of MZIs is shown to be able to remove photons coherently from both modes of a symmetric number-path entangled state with arbitrarily high photon number. Lastly, in Chapter 6 we introduce the phenomenon known as polarization self-rotation and discuss its potential in generating a squeezed vacuum state, which has a huge impact in quantum interferometry.