Full observation of single-atom dynamics in cavity QED

We report the use of broadband heterodyne spectroscopy to perform continuous measurement of the interaction energy E_int between one atom and a high-finesse optical cavity, during individual transit events of ≈250 μs duration. We achieve a fractional sensitivity ≈4×10^-4/ to variations in E_int/? within a measurement bandwidth that covers 2.5 decades of frequency (1–300 kHz). Our basic procedure is to drop cold cesium atoms into the cavity from a magnetooptic trap while monitoring the cavity’s complex optical susceptibility with a weak probe laser. The instantaneous value of the atom–cavity interaction energy, which in turn determines the coupled system’s optical susceptibility, depends on both the atomic position and (Zeeman) internal state. Measurements over a wide range of atom–cavity detunings reveal the transition from resonant to dispersive coupling, via the transfer of atom-induced signals from the amplitude to the phase of light transmitted through the cavity. By suppressing all sources of excess technical noise, we approach a measurement regime in which the broadband photocurrent may be interpreted as a classical record of conditional quantum evolution in the sense of recently developed quantum trajectory theories. Received: 2 June 1998 / Revised version: 4 December 1998 / Published online: 31 March 1999