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Fundamental prerequisites for realization of the quantum Zeno effect in the microwave and optical ranges

  • Regular Article – Quantum Optics
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Abstract

The main physical premises of the quantum Zeno effect in the problem of stopping the spontaneous radiative decay of excited atoms and nuclei are considered. It is shown for the first time that such an effect can be realized only for low-frequency radiative transitions (not higher than the microwave range), which correspond to the selective interaction of a quantum system with one or several discretely arranged modes of a quantized electromagnetic field in the volume of experimental setups. It is shown that this process occurs at the initial stage of the reversible Rabi precession and is formally unrelated to the true irreversible spontaneous decay. It is also shown that the effect of deceleration of radiative decay in the case of a quasi-continuous distribution of field modes is fundamentally impossible, which explains its absence for quantum sources of visible and shorter-wavelength radiation. In this case, the law of spontaneous radiative decay both at the beginning of the process and after a long time is described by the same standard exponential law. It has been shown for the first time that the quantum Zeno effect and stopping of spontaneous decay are possible in the infrared and visible ranges, provided that there are controlled sources inside the optical microresonators. These results can be used to create high-performance microlasers and to create optical systems for storing and processing information.

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Data Availability Statement

This manuscript has associated data in a data repository. [Authors' comment: Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study. This article is purely theoretical and it has no additional data in a data repository. All the data that is used in the article is given in the article itself and there is no additional data.]

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine

    V. I. Vysotskii & M. V. Vysotskyy

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  1. V. I. Vysotskii
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  2. M. V. Vysotskyy
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All authors contributed equally to the paper.

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Correspondence to M. V. Vysotskyy.

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Vysotskii, V.I., Vysotskyy, M.V. Fundamental prerequisites for realization of the quantum Zeno effect in the microwave and optical ranges. Eur. Phys. J. D 76, 158 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-022-00479-3

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