Direct experimental characterization of the Bose-Einstein distribution of spatial fluctuations of spontaneous parametric down-conversion

We present, to the best of our knowledge, the first experimental demonstration by direct detection of the Bose-Einstein photon-number distribution of highly spatially multi-mode but temporally single mode spontaneous parametric down-conversion.Received: 20 November 2003, Published online: 6 January 2004PACS: 42.50.-p Quantum optics - 42.50.Ar Photon statistics and coherence theory - 42.65.-k Nonlinear optics - 42.65.Lm Parametric down conversion and production of entangled photons     

Large index of refraction without absorption via decay-induced coherence in a three-level V system

We study the effects of quantum interference from spontaneous emission on the dispersion-absorption properties in a three-level V-type atomic system with two near-degenerate excited levels. We found that due to the quantum interference between two spontaneous decay channels, large index of refraction without absorption always can be obtained just by choosing proper values of the relative phase between the two applied fields.Received: 27 February 2004, Published online: 26 May 2004PACS: 42.50.Gy Effects of atomic coherence on propagation, absorption, and amplification of light; electromagnetically induced transparency and absorption - 42.50.Hz Strong-field excitation of optical transitions in quantum systems; multiphoton processes; dynamic Stark shift     

Nonlinear optical responses due to exciton-phonon interactions in strongly coupled exciton-phonon systems

The excitonic nonlinear optical responses due to exciton-phonon interactions in strongly coupled exciton-phonon systems are investigated theoretically. It is shown that the influence of exciton-phonon interactions on the nonlinear optical absorptions and Kerr nonlinear coefficients is significant as the signal field frequency detuning from the exciton frequency approaches to the optical phonon frequency. How to manipulate the nonlinear optical responses by using the control fields is also presented.Received: 16 March 2004, Published online: 4 May 2004PACS: 42.50.Gy Effects of atomic coherence on propagation, absorption, and amplification of light; electromagnetically induced transparency and absorption - 42.50.Hz Strong-field excitation of optical transitions in quantum systems; multiphoton processes; dynamic Stark shift - 42.25.Bs Wave propagation, transmission and absorption - 72.80.Le Polymers; organic compounds (including organic semiconductors)     

Temperature measurement of a single ion in a Penning trap

The present work is concerned with the association of a temperature to a single ion stored in a Penning ion trap. Several methods are described which allow to determine the temperature by measurements of the ions cyclotron and axial trapping frequencies. Recent results of a measurement on a hydrogen-like carbon ion ¹²C^{5 +} by use of mode coupling are presented and possible further applications are discussed.Received: 8 July 2004, Published online: 6 December 2004PACS: 07.20.-n. Thermal instruments and apparatus - 07.20.Dt. Thermometers - 42.50.Lc Quantum fluctuations - 42.50.Vk Mechanical effects of light on ions     

Evolution of photoelectron angular distributions in a train of identical,circularly polarized few-cycle laser pulses

Photoelectron angular distribution (PAD) of atoms irradiated by a train of identical, circularly polarized few-cycle laser pulses is studied in the frame of a nonperturbative scattering theory. Our study shows that the PADs vary with the kinetic energy of photoelectron, the carrier-envelope phase, and the pulse duration. We find that along with increasing of the kinetic energy of photoelectron or with decreasing of the pulse duration or the both, the original one maximum of PAD splits into two maxima; the newly produced two maxima evolve to the opposite pole of the symmetric axis, and finally incorporate as a new maximum located in the symmetric axis.Received: 26 February 2004, Published online: 10 August 2004PACS: 32.80.Rm Multiphoton ionization and excitation to highly excited states (e.g., Rydberg states) - 42.50.Hz Strong-field excitation of optical transitions in quantum systems; multiphoton processes; dynamic Stark shift - 42.65.Re Ultrafast processes; optical pulse generation and pulse compression     

Quantum model of emission in a weakly non ideal plasma

We present, in this work a simple analytical expression of line emission in weakly non ideal plasma using a simplified quantum model. This formalism allows to explain the variations of the line widths with the density in a weakly non ideal plasma. We apply this model to plasma neutral helium lines HeI 6678 Å and HeI 5876 Å and explain the non linearity of the line width.Received: 17 January 2004, Published online: 4 May 2004PACS: 32.70.Jz Line shapes, widths, and shifts - 31.15.Lc Quasiparticle methods - 42.50.-p Quantum optics     

Quantum-vacuum geometric phases in the noncoplanarly curved fiber system

The connection between the quantum-vacuum geometric phases (which originates from the vacuum zero-point electromagnetic fluctuation) and the non-normal order for operator product is considered in the present paper. In order to investigate this physically interesting geometric phases at quantum-vacuum level, we suggest an experimentally feasible scheme to test it by means of a noncoplanarly curved fiber made of gyrotropic media. A remarkable feature of the present experimental realization is that one can easily extract the nonvanishing and nontrivial quantum-vacuum geometric phases of left- and/or right-handed circularly polarized light from the vanishing and trivial total quantum-vacuum geometric phases. Since the normal-order procedure may remove globally the vacuum energy of time-dependent quantum systems, the potential physical vacuum effects (e.g., quantum-vacuum geometric phases) may also be removed by this procedure. Thus the detection of the geometric phases at quantum-vacuum level may answer whether the normal-order technique is valid or not in the time-dependent quantum field theory.Received: 4 February 2004, Published online: 29 June 2004PACS: 03.65.Vf Phases: geometric; dynamic or topological - 03.70. + k Theory of quantized fields - 42.70.-a Optical materials - 42.50.Xa Optical tests of quantum theory     

Squeezed Number Eigenstate of XYZ Heisenberg Antiferromagnetics Under a Magnetic Field

By using an algebraic diagonalization method, the XYZ Heisenberg antiferromagnetics under an external magnetic field is studied in the framework of spin-wave theory. The energy eigenstates are shown to be squeezed number states and the energy eigenvalues are obtained in some cases. Some quantum properties of the energy eigenstates, and the connection of the model with the two-mode coupled harmonic oscillators are also discussed. PACS numbers: 42.50.Dv, 42.50.Ar, 03.65.Fd.     

Collective effects in the dynamics of driven atoms in a high-Q resonator

We study the quantum dynamics of N coherently driven two-level atoms coupled to an optical resonator. In the strong coupling regime the cavity field generated by atomic scattering interferes destructively with the pump on the atoms. This suppresses atomic excitation and even for strong driving fields prevents atomic saturation, while the stationary intracavity field amplitude is almost independent of the atom number. The magnitude of the interference effect depends on the detuning between laser and cavity field and on the relative atomic positions and is strongest for a wavelength spaced lattice of atoms placed at the antinodes of the cavity mode. In this case three dimensional intensity minima are created in the vicinity of each atom. In this regime spontaneous emission is suppressed and the dominant loss channel is cavity decay. Even for a cavity linewidth larger than the atomic natural width, one regains strong interference through the cooperative action of a sufficiently large number of atoms. These results give a new key to understand recent experiments on collective cavity cooling and may allow to implement fast tailored atom-atom interactions as well as nonperturbative particle detection with very small energy transfer.Received: 18 May 2004, Published online: 19 October 2004PACS: 32.80.Pj Optical cooling of atoms; trapping - 42.50.Pq Cavity quantum electrodynamics; micromasers - 42.50.Fx Cooperative phenomena in quantum optical systems     

The coherent time evolution of two coupled quantum dots in a two-mode cavity

For two coupled identical quantum dots in a two-mode cavity, we determine the conditions of two-photon and single-photon resonance. It is shown that the exciton-phonon interaction reduces the Rabi frequencies of each model and the Förster interaction between double quantum dots even at absolute zero temperature. The exciton-phonon interaction also makes a contribution to the static exciton-exciton dipole interaction energy. Furthermore, the additional interactions can modify the conditions of photon resonance significantly. A more realistic case of two nonidentical quantum dots is also considered. The influence of parameter misfits on the quantum system is discussed.Received: 8 July 2004, Published online: 3 November 2004PACS: 73.21.La Quantum dots - 71.35.-y Excitons and related phenomena - 42.50.Pq Cavity quantum electrodynamics; micromasers     

Spatial distribution of quantum fluctuations in spontaneous down-conversion in realistic situations

We show that in the limit of negligible pump depletion, the spatial distribution of the quantum fluctuations in spontaneous parametric down-conversion can be computed for any shape of the pump beam by using the Greens function method to linearize the quantum fluctuations, even for very low levels of the intensities measured on the pixels. The results are in complete agreement with stochastic simulations of the Wigner distribution. Both methods show specific quantum effects in realistic situations close to the experiments now in progress, like sub-shot noise correlation between opposite pixels in the far field.Received: 15 January 2004, Published online: 23 March 2004PACS: 42.65.Yj Optical parametric oscillators and amplifiers - 42.50.-p Quantum optics - 42.65.-k Nonlinear optics     

Quantum fluctuations in holographic teleportation of optical images

We investigate in detail the quantum fluctuations in the quantum holographic teleportation protocol that we recently proposed [11]. This protocol implements a continuous variable teleportation scheme that enables the transfer of the quantum state of spatially multimode electromagnetic fields, preserving their quantum correlations in space-time, and can be used to perform teleportation of 2D optical images. We derive a characteristic functional, which provides any arbitrary spatio-temporal correlation function of the teleported field, and calculate the fidelity of the teleportation scheme for multimode Gaussian input states. We show that for multimode light fields one has to distinguish between a global and a reduced fidelity. While the global fidelity tends to vanish for teleportation of fields with many degrees of freedom, the reduced fidelity can be made close to unity by choosing properly the number of essential degrees of freedom and the spatial bandwidth of the EPR beams used in the teleportation scheme.Received: 16 March 2004, Published online: 11 May 2004PACS: 03.67.-a Quantum information - 03.65.Bz Foundations, theory of measurement, miscellaneous theories (including Aharonov-Bohm effect, Bell inequalities, Berrys phase) - 42.50.Dv Nonclassical states of the electromagnetic field, including entangled photon states; quantum state engineering and measurements     

Generalized two-mode harmonic oscillator model: squeezed number state solutions and nonadiabatic Berry’s phase

A generalized two-mode harmonic oscillator model is investigated within the framework of its general dynamical algebra so(3,2). Two types of eigenstates, formulated as extended su(1,1), su(2) squeezed number states are found respectively. The nonadiabatic Berrys phase for this system with the cranked time-dependent Hamiltonian is also given.Received: 16 January 2004, Published online: 10 August 2004PACS: 42.50.Dv Nonclassical states of the electromagnetic field, including entangled photon states; quantum state engineering and measurements - 03.65.Fd Algebraic methods - 03.65.Vf Phases: geometric; dynamic or topological     

Quantum memory based on $\mathsf{\Lambda}$-atoms ensemble with two-photon resonance EIT

We study the -atoms ensemble based quantum memory for the quantum information carried by a probe light field. Two atomic Rabi transitions of the ensemble are coupled to the quantum probe field and classical control field respectively with a same detuning. Our analysis shows that the dark states and dark-state polaritons can still exist for the present case of two-photon resonance EIT. Starting from these dark states we can construct a complete class of eigen-states of the total system. A explicit form of the adiabatic condition is also given in order to achieve the memory and retrieve of quantum information.Received: 8 June 2004, Published online: 10 August 2004PACS: 03.67.-a Quantum information - 42.50.Gy Effects of atomic coherence on propagation, absorption, and amplification of light; electromagnetically induced transparency and absorption - 03.65.Fd Algebraic methods     

Coherent-state qubits: entanglement and decoherence

Arbitrary superpositions of any two optical coherent states are investigated as realizations of qubits for quantum information processing. Decoherence of these coherent-state qubits is described in detail, and visualized using a suitable adaptive Bloch-sphere. The entanglement that can be created by a beam splitter from these states is quantified, and its decoherence behavior is analyzed.Received: 13 May 2004, Published online: 10 August 2004PACS: 42.50.Dv Nonclassical states of the electromagnetic field, including entangled photon states; quantum state engineering and measurements - 03.65.Ud Entanglement and quantum nonlocality (e.g. EPR paradox, Bells inequalities, GHZ states, etc.) - 03.67.-a Quantum information     

Doppler-free spectroscopy in driven three-level systems

We demonstrate two techniques for studying the features of three-level systems driven by two lasers (called control and probe), when the transitions are Doppler broadened as in room-temperature vapor. For -type systems, the probe laser is split to produce a counter-propagating pump beam that saturates the transition for the zero-velocity atoms. Probe transmission then shows Doppler-free peaks which can even have sub-natural linewidth. For V-type systems, the transmission of the control beam is detected as the probe laser is scanned. The signal shows Doppler-free peaks when the probe laser is resonant with transitions for the zero-velocity group. Both techniques greatly simplify the study of three-level systems since theoretical predictions can be directly compared without complications from Doppler broadening and the presence of multiple hyperfine levels in the spectrum.Received: 10 September 2003, Published online: 6 January 2004PACS: 42.50.Gy Effects of atomic coherence on propagation, absorption, and amplification of light; electromagnetically induced transparency and absorption - 42.50.-p Quantum optics     

Fluorescence from doubly driven four-level atoms

The unusually narrow features in the fluorescence from ⁸⁵Rb driven by two laser fields L1 and L2, reported in [1], are explained on the basis of a four-level density matrix calculation. The L2 laser enables atom transfer to the fluorescing levels connected by the strong L1 laser. In turn the L1 laser causes the Autler-Townes splitting of the upper levels connected by L2 laser. These two effects are shown to maximise fluorescence within a narrow spectral range of the scanned L2 laser due to velocity selection of atoms from co-propagating and counter propagating L1 and L2 lasers. The analysis reveals the existence of narrow spectral features from a collection of atoms at room temperature even in the absence of induced coherences between the levels.Received: 2 July 2004, Published online: 21 September 2004PACS: 42.50.Hz Strong-field excitation of optical transitions in quantum systems; multiphoton processes; dynamic Stark shift - 32.80.Bx Level crossing and optical pumping