dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaQuantum jumps in a two-level atom
| Authors | H. M. Wiseman, G. E. Toombes |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/9903023 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9903023 |
Abstract
A strongly-driven ($\Omega >> \gamma$) two level atom relaxes towards an equilibrium state rho which is almost completely mixed. One interpretation of this state is that it represents an ensemble average, and that an individual atom is at any time in one of the eigenstates of $\rho$. The theory of Teich and Mahler [Phys. Rev. A 45, 3300 (1992)] makes this interpretation concrete, with an individual atom jumping stochastically between the two eigenstates when a photon is emitted. The dressed atom theory is also supposed to describe the quantum jumps of an individual atom due to photo-emissions. But the two pictures are contradictory because the dressed states of the atom are almost orthogonal to the eigenstates of $\rho$. In this paper we investigate three ways of measuring the field radiated by the atom, which attempt to reproduce the simple quantum jump dynamics of the dressed state or Teich and Mahler models. These are: spectral detection (using optical filters), two-state jumps (using adaptive homodyne detection) and orthogonal jumps (another adaptive homodyne scheme). We find that the three schemes closely mimic the jumps of the dressed state model, with errors of order $(3/4) (\gamma/\Omega)^{2/3}$, $(1/4) (\gamma/\Omega)^{2}$, and $(3/4) (\gamma/\Omega)^{2}$ respectively. The significance of this result to the program of environmentally-induced superselection is discussed.
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"abstract": "A strongly-driven ($\\Omega \u003e\u003e \\gamma$) two level atom relaxes towards an\nequilibrium state rho which is almost completely mixed. One interpretation of\nthis state is that it represents an ensemble average, and that an individual\natom is at any time in one of the eigenstates of $\\rho$. The theory of Teich\nand Mahler [Phys. Rev. A 45, 3300 (1992)] makes this interpretation concrete,\nwith an individual atom jumping stochastically between the two eigenstates when\na photon is emitted. The dressed atom theory is also supposed to describe the\nquantum jumps of an individual atom due to photo-emissions. But the two\npictures are contradictory because the dressed states of the atom are almost\northogonal to the eigenstates of $\\rho$. In this paper we investigate three\nways of measuring the field radiated by the atom, which attempt to reproduce\nthe simple quantum jump dynamics of the dressed state or Teich and Mahler\nmodels. These are: spectral detection (using optical filters), two-state jumps\n(using adaptive homodyne detection) and orthogonal jumps (another adaptive\nhomodyne scheme). We find that the three schemes closely mimic the jumps of the\ndressed state model, with errors of order $(3/4) (\\gamma/\\Omega)^{2/3}$, $(1/4)\n(\\gamma/\\Omega)^{2}$, and $(3/4) (\\gamma/\\Omega)^{2}$ respectively. The\nsignificance of this result to the program of environmentally-induced\nsuperselection is discussed.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/9903023",
"authors": [
"H. M. Wiseman",
"G. E. Toombes"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
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"title": "Quantum jumps in a two-level atom",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9903023"
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