Abstract
The absorption and the emission of photons by an atom involves quantum jumps between states. We investigate the quantum jump statistics for the system of a two-level atom and a single-mode cavity field. We use the Jaynes-Cummings model for this problem, perform Monte Carlo numerical simulations, and give a detailed exact analysis on these simulations. These studies reveal that the waiting-time distribution (WTD) for photon absorptions (emissions) has a unique novel statistic, and that the photon absorption (emission) rate is not uniform, but counter-intuitively depends on the position in the Rabi cycle. The effects of the nonclassical nature of the field on the WTD is discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
I. I. Rabi, Phys. Rev. 51, 652 (1937).
See, for example, H. Haken, Light (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1981), Vol. 1, p. 140.
H. Dehmelt, B. Am. Phys. Soc. 20, 60 (1975); W. Nagourney, J. Sandberg and H. Dehmelt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 56, 2797 (1986); T. Sauter, W. Neuhauser, R. Blatt and P. Toschek, Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 1696 (1986); J. C. Bergquist, R. G. Hulet, W. M. Itano and D. J. Wineland, Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 1699 (1986).
N. Gisin and I. C. Percival, J. Phys. A 25, 5677 (1992); H. J. Carmichael, An Open Systems Approach to Quantum Optics (Springer, Berlin, 1993); J. Dalibard, Y. Castin and K. Mølmer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 580 (1992); C. W. Gardiner, A. S. Parkins and P. Zoller, Phys. Rev. A 46, 4363 (1992); H. M. Wiseman and G. J. Milburn, Phys. Rev. A 47, 1652 (1993); M. B. Plenio and P. L. Knight, Rev. Mod. Phys. 70, 101 (1998).
C. J. Lee, Bull. Korean Chem. Soc. 27, 1186 (2006).
B. Misra and E. C. G. Sudarshan, J. Math. Phys. 18, 756 (1977).
W. M. Itano, D. J. Heinzen, J. J. Bollinger and D. J. Weinland, Phys. Rev. A 41, 2295 (1990).
For a review, see K. Koshinoa and A. Shimizu, Phys. Rep. 412, 191 (2005).
E. T. Jaynes and F. W. Cummings, Proc. IEEE 51, 89 (1963).
J. H. Eberly, N. B. Narozhny and J. J. Sanchez-Mondragon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 44, 1323 (1980); G. Rempe, H. Walther and N. Klein, Phys. Rev. Lett. 58, 353 (1987).
For a review, see S. Haroche and J-M. Raimond, Exploring the Quantum (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006).
T. Häyrynena, J. Oksanen and J. Tulkki, Eur. Phys. J. D 56, 113 (2010).
This choice of the atomic labels stems from the isomorphism between a two-level atom and a spin-1/2 particle, a fermion. The atomic state labels then can be regarded as the occupation numbers of the fermion. For a detailed discussion see, Ref. 14.
C. J. Lee, Phys. Rev. A 42, 1601 (1990).
See, for example, W. H. Louisell, Quantum Statistical Properties of Radiation (Wiley, New York, 1973), Chap. 5.
The time a quantum jump takes may be infinitesimally small. In this paper, we do not worry about how short the jump time is. We can always change the value of N as needed. In practice, we choose some large N value that gives results virtually identical to the ones when N → ∞. For a discussion on the time related to quantum jumps, see L. S. Schulman in, Time in Quantum Mechanics, edited by J. G. Muga, R. Sala Mayato and I. L. Egusquiza, (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2002) p. 99 and references therein.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lee, C.J. Photon absorption and emission statistics of a two-level atom in a cavity. Journal of the Korean Physical Society 60, 766–772 (2012). https://doi.org/10.3938/jkps.60.766
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3938/jkps.60.766