In this paper, the master equations for a two-level system driven by three photons has been derived. Particularly, the incident photons are distributed in two input channels, namely, the first input channel contains a two-photon state, while another single-photon state is in the second input channel. The excitation probabilities of the two-level system are simulated with different bandwidths of input photons. The influence of the number of input photons and channels on the atomic excitation is concluded.
The quantum theory of the three-energy-level two-mode laser in which all the levels are being pumped is investigated and the master equation of the laser operation is obtained. It contains two variables,
n1, the photon number of the first mode, and
n2, the photon number of the second mode. There appear four terms in the master equation which represent two-photon processes between the two modes, the absorption of a photon from one mode, and emission of a photon to the other. They are absent in the single-mode case and in the two-mode case with pumping only to the upper level. The master equation can be represented by a diagram of probability in two dimensions which can be extended to infinity, and each arrow of it represents a term on the right-hand side of the master equation. By summing each variable (
n1 or
n2) of the master equation, two equations can be obtained. Each equation contains only one variable, and can be expressed by a diagram of probability flow in one dimension. By considering the correspondence between macroscopic equilibrium and microscopic detailed balance the equations of motion in the steady state are obtained. By introducing a parameter
H, the equation of motion is simplified and a formal solution can be deduced which is dependent on
H. It appears that the parameter
H cannot be fully determined, but some properties of it can be deduced which prove that the introduction of
H is reasonable. The operation characteristics of the laser under different conditions are discussed on the basis of the formal solution: among them are the threshold condition, the condition for one-mode operation, and the change of the photon-statistical distribution. We especially discuss the laser output power curves under two-mode operation above threshold. The curve of one mode, which oscillates first, shows a bending-down phenomenon as the excitation increases when the other mode goes beyond its threshold as demonstrated experimentally by Otsuka. This phenomenon is explained qualitatively and is attributed to the two-photon processes between the two modes.
A quantum theory of a two-photon laser in a three-level atomic system of the cascade type is presented starting from an original microscopic Hamiltonian. The master equation of the laser operation is derived by using the method of Scully and Lamb [Phys. Rev. A 159, 208 (1967)] for a single-mode laser containing a two-level medium. The photon-number distribution of the laser is studied in detail. The curve of the distribution may have a two-peak structure. One of the peaks located at the origin comes from the single-photon process and reflects the thermal property of the laser, while another comes from the two-photon process and reflects the coherent property of the laser. We cannot find an exact criterion for the threshold of the two-photon laser. The two-photon laser can approximately be considered as a coherent state for certain values of A/C, which can even be much smaller than the threshold for the nonresonant single-mode laser in a two-level system, but it is much larger than the threshold for the resonant one.
The quantum theory of two-level atom single-mode laser system of Sargent, Scully and Lamb is extended to two-mode laser in a three-level atomic system with common lower level, and master equation is obtained for the system with all the three levels being pumped. There appear four terms in the master equation that are absent in the single-mode case and those interpreted as 2-photon processes play an especial role in the present case. The master equation is represented by a probability flow diagram in two-dimensions with the photon numbers n1 and n2 of the two-mode as variables. The probability flow diagram can be extended to infinity, and each arrow of it represents a term of the right hand side of master equation. By taking sum over one of the variables n1 or n2, the master equation is reduced to two equations, each of them can be represented by an one-dimensional probability flow diagram. The equation of motion under steady state is obtained by considering the correspondence between the macroscopic balance and the microscopic balance.A parameter H is introduced to reduce the equation of motion and to facilitate the mathematical procedure and a formal solution is thus obtained. Using the equation of motion and its formal solution various operation characteristics are discussed. Among them are: the threshold condition for each mode; the condition of only one mode operation; the variation of photon statistics between single-mode operation and two-mode operation and the variation of photon statistics with lower level being pumped and not pumped.
We study how the transient excitation probability of a two-level atom by a quantized field depends on the temporal profile of the incident pulse, in the presence of external losses, for both coherent and Fock states, and in two complementary limits: when the pulse contains only one photon (on average), and when the number of photons
N is large. For the latter case we derive analytical expressions for the scaling of the excitation probability with
N that can be easily evaluated for any pulse shape.
The purpose of this paper is to study the interaction between a two-level system (qubit) and two continuous-mode photons. Two scenarios are investigated: Case 1, how a two-level system changes the pulse shapes of two input photons propagating in a single input channel; and Case 2, how a two-level system responds to two counterpropagating photons, one in each input channel. The steady-state output field states for both cases are derived analytically in both the time and frequency domains. Numerical simulations demonstrate rich and interesting two-photon scattering phenomena induced by a two-level system.