arXiv:quant-ph/0611138 · Physical Review A
Atomic detection in microwave cavity experiments: A dynamical model
R. Rossi, Maria Carolina Nemes, J. G. Peixoto de Faria
Abstract
We construct a model for the atomic detection in the context of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) used to study coherence properties of superpositions of states of an electromagnetic mode. Analytic expressions for the atomic ionization are obtained, considering the imperfections of the measurement process due to the probabilistic nature of the interactions between the ionization field and the atoms. We provide for a dynamical content for the available expressions for the counting rates considering limited efficiency of detectors. Moreover, we include false countings. The influence of these imperfections on the information about the state of the cavity mode is obtained. In order to test the adequacy of our approach, we investigate a recent experiment reported by Ma\^{\i}tre [X. Ma\^{\i}tre et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 769 (1997)] and we obtain excellent agreement with the experimental results.