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Optica Acta International Journal of Optics

Rydberg Atoms

P. Filipowicz, Pierre Meystre, Gerhard Rempe, HERBERT WALTHER

Published Sep 1, 1985• 79 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The progress achieved during the last few years in using Rydberg atoms to test the foundations of quantum electrodynamics is reviewed. In particular, the effects of blackbody radiation on their dynamical properties, the modification of their rate of spontaneous emission in tailored environments, and the one-atom maser are discussed. Possibilities of testing the predictions of the Jaynes-Cummings model are also briefly addressed.

DOI
10.1080/713821832

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•Jan 1, 1985•0 citations
The progress achieved during the last few years in using Rydberg atoms to test the foundations of quantum electrodynamics is reviewed. In particular, the effects of blackbody radiation on their dynamical properties, the modification of their rate of spontaneous emission in tailored environments, and the one-atom maser are discussed. Possibilities of testing the predictions of the Jaynes-Cummings model are also briefly addressed.
Rydberg atoms excited in microwave resonators are ideal systems to test quantum electrodynamics on an unusual scale.1 Owing to their very large electric dipole sizes, these atoms are indeed coupled so strongly to infrared and millimeter-wave radiation that the field of a few photons—ultimately the one of a single photon—stored in a cavity is large enough to induce important transition rates during the atomic time of flight across the cavity. As a result quantum radiative effects are observed in a range of frequencies where usual atomic systems behave as purely classical radiators. The enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate of a single atom prepared in a tuned cavity has already been observed.2 For a resonant cavity with very small losses, a point should be reached where the atom can no longer decay but instead reversibly oscillates between the two states involved in the transition resonant with the cavity mode. Experiments aimed at the observation of this new regime of quantum electrodynamics evolution are under way
Experimental and theoretical studies of Rydberg masers-quantum-electronic devices which produce and employ microwave radiation from highly excited atoms in a cavity-are reviewed. The experimental results are based mainly on studies performed by S. Haroche's group in Paris and H. Walther's group in Munich. In contradistinction to the usual quantum generators the quantum properties of the electromagnetic field itself play an important role in the analysis of the behavioral dynamics of Rydberg masers. The most striking results obtained in this field are the discovery of quantum revival and the achievement of maser generation on two-photon transitions and Fok states of the electromagnetic field.
. In this paper experiments performed with the one-atom maser are reviewed. Furthermore, possible experiments to test basic quantum physics are discussed. Introduction, the One-Atom-Maser The most promising avenue to study the generation process of radiation in lasers and masers is to drive a maser consisting of a single mode cavity by single atoms. This system, at first glance, seems to be another example of a Gedanken-experiment treated in the pioneering work of Jaynes and Cummings (1963), but such a one-atom maser (Meschede, Walther and Müller, 1985) really exists and can in addition be used to study the basic principles of radiation-atom interaction. The advantages of the system are: it is the first maser which sustains oscillations with less than one atom on the average in the cavity, this setup allows to study in detail the conditions necessary to obtain nonclassical radiation, especially radiation with sub-Poissonian photon statistics in a maser system directly in a Poissonian pumping process, and it is possible to study a variety of phenomena of a quantum field including the quantum measurement process. What are the tools that make this device work: It was the enormous progress in constructing superconducting cavities together with the laser preparation of highly excited atoms – Rydberg atoms – that have made the realization of such a one-atom maser possible.
The operation of maser devices using highly excited Rydberg atoms as active medium is investigated. These systems, working in a transient regime reminiscent of super-radiance generate few-hundred-ns-long bursts of mm-wave radiation. They are characterized by extremely low inversion density thresholds (${N}_{0}\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{4}$ atoms typically) and very small peak power outputs (in the ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}11}$- to ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}13}$-watt range). This study is interesting in the context of new tests of super-radiance and electrodynamics theory. It also opens new possibilities in the important domain of mm-wave amplification and detection. In this paper, we present a simple semiclassical theory of transient Rydberg maser operation and we report the experimental observation of a large number of maser emission lines on Na atoms, spanning a wide frequency interval ($60<\ensuremath{\nu}<950$ GHz). The technique used to monitor the emission is the indirect field ionization procedure which reveals fast radiative transfers occurring between Rydberg levels. Another method involving the direct detection of the maser radiation by a heterodyne receiver is described in a subsequent paper, along with a report on the investigation of various effects related to the triggering of the transient maser emission by external radiation.
In this thesis we present a theoretical analysis of some of the implications of the quantum nature of the electromagnetic field.In particular, we are interested in how atomic dynamics are modified by coupling to a quantized radiation field.In chapter two we review the Jaynes-Cummings model of atom-field interactions.This model consists of a single two-level atom coupled to a single mode of the radiation field.The evolution of the atom depends upon the initial quantum state of the field mode.Chapter three is a review of the quantum theory of dissipation.In chapter four we examine the properties of the thermofield states of the two-mode, quantized radiation fields.We investigate the use of these states as a representation of single mode thermal states.The thermo field representation is used to describe interactions involving thermal averages and in an analysis of two-mode squeezing in parametric amplifiers.Chapters five to seven are concerned with the Rydberg atom maser.In chapter five we review some of the properties of Rydberg atoms in cavities and consider the validity of the Jaynes-Cummings model as a description of the maser.In chapter six we discuss the modification of the atomic dynamics when more than one atom is present in the cavity.We show how the collective atomic inversion is influenced by many-atom effects, as well as the photon statistical effects present in the single atom Jaynes-CHAPTER