There is increasing interest in the photon statistics and spectroscopic properties of the radiation from atoms confined in an optical cavity. Effects such as the cavity enhancement and inhibition of spontaneous emission, which were first observed using microwave cavities, have recently been measured at optical frequencies.1 Recent measurements of squeezing and the dynamic effects of single-quantum-level splittings also demonstrate the possibilities for quantum-statistical studies of coupled atom-cavity systems at optical frequencies.2 We study a single two-level atom confined inside an optical cavity which is driven by coherent light in resonance with both cavity and atom. For weak driving field intensities we have calculated the spectrum of the light transmitted by the cavity and fluorescence out the sides of the cavity.
There is increasing interest in the photon statistics and spectroscopic properties of the radiation from atoms confined in an optical cavity. Effects such as the cavity enhancement and inhibition of spontaneous emission, which were first observed using microwave cavities, have recently been measured at optical frequencies.1 Recent measurements of squeezing and the dynamic effects of single-quantum-level splittings also demonstrate the possibilities for quantum-statistical studies of coupled atom-cavity systems at optical frequencies.2 We study a single two-level atom confined inside an optical cavity which is driven by coherent light in resonance with both cavity and atom. For weak driving field intensities we have calculated the spectrum of the light transmitted by the cavity and fluorescence out the sides of the cavity.
We consider a single two-level atom in an optical cavity, in which the system is driven by a coherent driving field. In the bad-cavity limit, when the cavity loss rate is taken to be large compared to the atomic decay rate and atom-field coupling, the cavity field can be adiabatically eliminated from the equations of motion for the atomic operators. The main effect of the cavity in this limit is the enhancement of spontaneous emission into the cavity mode. For this model, the second-order intensity correlation function g(2)() has been shown to exhibit photon antibunching, sub-Poissonian photon number distributions, and other nonclassical effects.1 In this paper, analytic results are presented for g(2)() for both the transmitted and fluorescent light fields when broadband squeezed light is injected into the cavity. Effects of the squeezing on nonclassical behavior is examined.
We consider the interaction of a two-level atom inside an optical parametric oscillator. In the weak-driving-field limit, we essentially have an atom-cavity system driven by the occasional pair of correlated photons, or weakly squeezed light. We find that we may have holes, or dips, in the spectrum of the fluorescent and transmitted light. This occurs even in the strong-coupling limit when we find holes in the vacuum-Rabi doublet. Also, spectra with a subnatural linewidth may occur. These effects disappear for larger driving fields, unlike the spectral narrowing obtained in resonance fluorescence in a squeezed vacuum; here it is important that the squeezing parameter N tends to zero so that the system interacts with only one correlated pair of photons at a time. We show that a previous explanation for spectral narrowing and spectral holes for incoherent scattering is not applicable in the present case, and propose an alternative explanation. We attribute these anomalous effects to quantum interference in the two-photon scattering of the system.
The standard theory of resonance fluorescence is a weak-coupling theory.1 If n ¯ is the mean photon number for the driving field, g is the atom field coupling constant, and γ is the Einstein A coefficient, formally the standard theory of resonance fluorescence assumes the limit n ¯ → ∞ , g/ γ → 0, with the ratio of Rabi frequency to atomic linewidth 2 n ¯ n g / γ finite. The limit g/γ → 0 allows the variation of the Rabi frequency 2 n g across the photon number distribution of the driving field to be neglected. By placing the atom inside an optical cavity the ratio g/γ can be changed. In this paper we calculate spectra for intracavity resonance fluorescence in the strong-coupling limit g/γ ≫ 1, g/κ ≫ 1, where κ is the cavity linewidth. We consider a single two-level atom interacting on resonance with a single cavity mode driven by a resonant coherent field. The cavity subtends a small solid angle at the atom, so that the spontaneous emission into free-space modes is not negligible. We calculate the spectrum of the light transmitted by the cavity (the transmitted spectrum) and the spectrum of the light radiated by the atom into free space (the fluorescent spectrum). The transmitted and fluorescent spectra show fundamental differences from the (weak-coupling) spectrum of free-space resonance fluorescence.
We consider an optical cavity containing a single two-level atom driven on resonance by an external laser source.1 We focus on the limit of weak excitation where the dynamic response of this system is governed by just three parameters: the atom-field coupling constant g, spontaneous emission rate γ for the atom, and cavity decay rate κ. The statistics of the transmitted light are analyzed as a function of g, γ, and κ, in terms of the second-order correlation function g(2)(τ), and the quadrature variances measured in a homodyne detection scheme. Squeezing and photon antibunching exist over a wide range of parameters. For γ ~ κ, the system can exhibit an oscillatory response, even when the mean intracavity photon number is much less than unity.2 The oscillations can be understood in terms of the coupling between the free atom-field eigenstates |0,−>, |0,+>, and |1,−>. The oscillation frequency is determined by the energy level splitting produced between the degenerate one-quantum states |0,+> and |1,−> by the atom-field interaction. The second-order correlation function can exhibit a novel nonclassical effect, where, for g(2)(0) ≠ 0, at some finite delay τ0, the correlation function dips exactly to zero—g(2)(τ0) = 0.
We consider a two-level atom in an optical cavity driven by a coherent field and coupled to broadband squeezed vacuum. In the bad-cavity limit, the cavity field can be adiabatically eliminated, leaving equations of motion for atomic operators similar to those of free-space resonance fluorescence. We calculate the incoherent spectrum of the fluorescent light field and find that the cavity-enhanced spontaneous emission can be suppressed, and a subnatural linewidth obtained, for the correct choice of the phase of the squeezed input relative to the coherent driving field.
The photon statistics of the transmitted light from a driven cavity containing a single resonant two-level atom are studied in the bad-cavity limit. For weak driving fields, the second-order intensity correlation function shows novel nonclassical behavior due to the interference of the driving field and forward reradiation from the atom. This behavior is related to squeezing in the cavity transmission. A physical interpretation is given in terms of the reduced quantum state of the coupled atom-field system following photodetection.>