174 research outputs found
Photon Echoes Produced by Switching Electric Fields
We demonstrate photon echoes in Eu:YSiO by controlling the
inhomogeneous broadening of the Eu
FD optical transition. This transition has
a linear Stark shift and we induce inhomogeneous broadening by applying an
external electric field gradient. After optical excitation, reversing the
polarity of the field rephases the ensemble, resulting in a photon echo. This
is the first demonstration of such a photon echo and its application as a
quantum memory is discussed.Comment: improved introduction, including theoretical outline of the relvant
quantum memory proposa
Interference of multi-mode photon echoes generated in spatially separated solid-state atomic ensembles
High-visibility interference of photon echoes generated in spatially
separated solid-state atomic ensembles is demonstrated. The solid state
ensembles were LiNbO waveguides doped with Erbium ions absorbing at 1.53
m. Bright coherent states of light in several temporal modes (up to 3) are
stored and retrieved from the optical memories using two-pulse photon echoes.
The stored and retrieved optical pulses, when combined at a beam splitter, show
almost perfect interference, which demonstrates both phase preserving storage
and indistinguishability of photon echoes from separate optical memories. By
measuring interference fringes for different storage times, we also show
explicitly that the visibility is not limited by atomic decoherence. These
results are relevant for novel quantum repeaters architectures with photon echo
based multimode quantum memories
Jacobi Identity for Vertex Algebras in Higher Dimensions
Vertex algebras in higher dimensions provide an algebraic framework for
investigating axiomatic quantum field theory with global conformal invariance.
We develop further the theory of such vertex algebras by introducing formal
calculus techniques and investigating the notion of polylocal fields. We derive
a Jacobi identity which together with the vacuum axiom can be taken as an
equivalent definition of vertex algebra.Comment: 35 pages, references adde
Scaling properties of cavity-enhanced atom cooling
We extend an earlier semiclassical model to describe the dissipative motion
of N atoms coupled to M modes inside a coherently driven high-finesse cavity.
The description includes momentum diffusion via spontaneous emission and cavity
decay. Simple analytical formulas for the steady-state temperature and the
cooling time for a single atom are derived and show surprisingly good agreement
with direct stochastic simulations of the semiclassical equations for N atoms
with properly scaled parameters. A thorough comparison with standard free-space
Doppler cooling is performed and yields a lower temperature and a cooling time
enhancement by a factor of M times the square of the ratio of the atom-field
coupling constant to the cavity decay rate. Finally it is shown that laser
cooling with negligible spontaneous emission should indeed be possible,
especially for relatively light particles in a strongly coupled field
configuration.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Emission spectra of atoms with non-Markovian interaction: Fluorescence in a photonic crystal
We present a formula to evaluate the spontaneous emission spectra of an atom
in contact with a radiation field with non-Markovian effects. This formula is
written in terms of a two-time correlation of system observables and the
environmental correlation function, and depends on the distance between the
emitting atom and the detector. As an example, we use it to analyze the
fluorescence spectra of a two level atom placed as an impurity in a photonic
crystal. The radiation field within those materials has a gap or discontinuity
where electromagnetic modes cannot propagate in the stationary limit. In that
situation, the atomic emission occurs in the form of evanescent waves which are
detected with less efficiency the farther we place the detector. The
methodology presented in this paper may be useful to study the non-Markovian
dynamics of any quantum open system in linear interaction with a harmonic
oscillator reservoir and within the weak coupling approximation
Quantum memory for photons: I. Dark state polaritons
An ideal and reversible transfer technique for the quantum state between
light and metastable collective states of matter is presented and analyzed in
detail. The method is based on the control of photon propagation in coherently
driven 3-level atomic media, in which the group velocity is adiabatically
reduced to zero. Form-stable coupled excitations of light and matter
(``dark-state polaritons'') associated with the propagation of quantum fields
in Electromagnetically Induced Transparency are identified, their basic
properties discussed and their application for quantum memories for light
analyzed.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, paragraph on photon echo adde
Spectroscopic investigations of a Ti:Tm:LiNbO3 waveguide for photon-echo quantum memory
We report the fabrication and characterization of a
Ti:Tm:LiNbO optical waveguide in view of photon-echo quantum
memory applications. In particular, we investigated room- and
cryogenic-temperature properties via absorption, spectral hole burning, photon
echo, and Stark spectroscopy. We found radiative lifetimes of 82 s and 2.4
ms for the H and F levels, respectively, and a 44% branching
ratio from the H to the F level. We also measured an optical
coherence time of 1.6 s for the HH, 795 nm
wavelength transition, and investigated the limitation of spectral diffusion to
spectral hole burning. Upon application of magnetic fields of a few hundred
Gauss, we observed persistent spectral holes with lifetimes up to seconds.
Furthermore, we measured a linear Stark shift of 25 kHzcm/V. Our results
are promising for integrated, electro-optical, waveguide quantum memory for
photons.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figure
Theory of Pseudomodes in Quantum Optical Processes
This paper deals with non-Markovian behaviour in atomic systems coupled to a
structured reservoir of quantum EM field modes, with particular relevance to
atoms interacting with the field in high Q cavities or photonic band gap
materials. In cases such as the former, we show that the pseudo mode theory for
single quantum reservoir excitations can be obtained by applying the Fano
diagonalisation method to a system in which the atomic transitions are coupled
to a discrete set of (cavity) quasimodes, which in turn are coupled to a
continuum set of (external) quasimodes with slowly varying coupling constants
and continuum mode density. Each pseudomode can be identified with a discrete
quasimode, which gives structure to the actual reservoir of true modes via the
expressions for the equivalent atom-true mode coupling constants. The quasimode
theory enables cases of multiple excitation of the reservoir to now be treated
via Markovian master equations for the atom-discrete quasimode system.
Applications of the theory to one, two and many discrete quasimodes are made.
For a simple photonic band gap model, where the reservoir structure is
associated with the true mode density rather than the coupling constants, the
single quantum excitation case appears to be equivalent to a case with two
discrete quasimodes
Quantum trajectory simulations of the fluorescence intensity from a two-level atom driven by a multichromatic field
The quantum trajectories method is illustrated for the resonance fluorescence of a two-level atom driven by a multichromatic field. We discuss the method for the time evolution of the fluorescence intensity in the presence of bichromatic and trichromatic driving fields. We consider the special case wherein one multichromatic field component is strong and resonant with the atomic transition whereas the other components are much weaker and arbitrarily detuned from the atomic resonance. We find that the phase-dependent modulations of the Rabi oscillations, recently observed experimentally [Q. Wu, D. J. Gauthier, and T. W. Mossberg, Phys. Rev. A 49, R1519 (1994)] for the special case when the weaker component of a bichromatic driving field is detuned from the atomic resonance by the strong-field Rabi frequency, appear also for detunings close to the subharmonics of the Rabi frequency. Furthermore, we show that for the atom initially prepared in one of the dressed states of the strong field component the modulations are not sensitive to the phase. We extend the calculations to the case of a trichromatic driving field and find that apart from the modulations of the amplitude there is a modulation of the frequency of the Rabi oscillations. Moreover, the time evolution of the fluorescence intensity depends on the phase regardless of the initial conditions and a phase-dependent suppression of the Rabi oscillations can be observed when the sideband fields are tuned to the subharmonics of the strong-field Rabi frequency. [S1050-2947(98)03501-X]
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