Annual Meeting Optical Society of America
Cross correlations between fluorescent and transmitted photons in single-atom cavity-enhanced absorption
Perry R. Rice, Xiaoyi Wang, H. J. Carmichael
Abstract
We study a single two-level atom interacting on resonance with a weakly driven optical cavity mode. In earlier work on this system we calculated the degree of second-order coherence, the optical spectrum, and the spectrum of squeezing for both the transmitted light and fluorescence out the sides of the cavity.1,2 We present results for the cross-correlation functions that determine joint probabilities for a photodetection in transmission (fluorescence) followed by a photodetection in fluorescence (transmission). We compute these correlation functions numerically for arbitrary values of the three rates that govern the system dynamics: the atomic decay rate γ to modes other than the cavity mode, the photon escape rate from the cavity 2K, and the atom-field coupling constant g. Analytical results provide insight for the following limits of the parameters: (1) the bad-cavity limit, κ/γ→∞,κ/g→∞,g2/κγ constant; (2) the atomic-loss limit, κ/γ→0,κ/g→0,γ/g constant; (3) the cavity-loss limit, γ/κ→0,γ/g→0,g/κ constant; and (4) the good-cavity limit, k/γ→0,k/g→0,g2/κγ constant. In the bad-cavity limit the cross-correlation functions are symmetric with respect to the order of detection in transmission and fluorescence; in general they are not symmetric.