Preservation of atomic coherence in double-well optical lattice in presence of decoherence

We present a quantum interference approach to preserve coherence in the external states of an atom trapped in an optical lattice. We show that this is possible by suitably choosing the initial state of the atom. We demonstrate this in context of decoherence due to spontaneous emission in an one-dimensional optical double-well lattice.Comment: 9 figures, preprint, resubmitted to PR

Coherence and its Role in Excitation Energy Transfer in Fenna-Mathews-Olson Complex

We show that the coherence between different bacteriochlorophyll-a (BChla) sites in the Fenna-Mathews-Olson complex is an essential ingredient for excitation energy transfer between various sites. The coherence delocalizes the excitation energy, which results in the redistribution of excitation among all the BChla sites in the steady state. We further show that the system remains partially coherent at the steady state. In our numerical simulation of the non-Markovian density matrix equation, we consider both the inhomogeneity of the protein environment and the effect of active vibronic modes

Optical switching and bistability in a four-level atomic systems

We explore the coherent control of nonlinear absorption of intense laser fields in four-level atomic systems. For instance, in a four-level ladder system, a coupling field creates electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with Aulter-Townes doublet for the probe field while the control field is absent. A large absorption peak appears at resonance as the control field is switched on. We show how such a large absorption leads to optical switching. Further, this large absorption gets diminished and a transparency window appears due to the saturation effects as the strength of the probe field is increased. We further demonstrate that the threshold of the optical bistability can be modified by suitable choices of the coupling and the control fields. In a four-level Y-type configuration, the effect of the control field on saturable absorption (SA) and reverse saturable absorption (RSA) is highlighted in the context of nonlinear absorption of the probe field. We achieve RSA and SA in a simple atomic system just by applying a control field

Role of Initial Coherence in Excitation Energy Transfer in Fenna-Matthews-Olson Complex

We theoretically show that the initial coherence plays a crucial role in enhancing the speed of excitation energy transfer (EET) in Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex. We choose a simplistic eight-level model considering all the bacateriochlorophyll-a sites in a monomer of FMO complex. We make a comparative numerical study of the EET, in terms of non-Markovian evolution of an initial coherent superposition state and a mixed state. A femto-second coherent laser pulse is suitably chosen to create the initial coherent superposition state. Such an initial state relaxes much faster than a mixed state thereby speeding up the EET. In this analysis, we have taken into account the relative orientation of the transition dipole moments of the bacateriochlorophyll-a sites and their relative excitation energies. Our results reveal that for 2D electronic spectroscopy experiments, the existing two-pathway model of energy transfer in FMO complex may not be suitable in our understanding of EET

Light deflection by light: Effect of incidence angle and inhomogeneity

We study the angular deflection of the circular polarized components of a linearly polarized probe field in a weakly birefringent atomic system in tripod configuration. A spatially inhomogeneous control field incident obliquely onto an atomic vapor cell facilitates a large angular divergence between circular components. We show that the angular resolution can be dynamically controlled by optimally choosing the angle of incidence and the transverse profile of the control beam. For instance, by employing a Laguerre-Gaussian profile of the control field, one can impart a large angular divergence to the circular components close to the entry face of the atomic vapor cell. We further demonstrate how such a medium causes the focusing and refocusing of the probe field, thereby acting as a lens with multiple foci. The absorption in the medium remains negligible at resonance due to electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT)

Role of Coherence in Excitation Transfer Efficiency to the Reaction Center in Photosynthetic Bacteria Chlorobium Tepidum

We investigate the effect of coherence to the excitation transfer efficiency (ETE) in photosynthetic bacteria Chlorobium Tepidum. We have modeled the monomer of Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex as consisting of eight bacteriochlorophyll-a sites, while explicitly consider reaction center core complex (RCC) as an additional site. With the use of realistic bath spectrum and several dominant vibronic modes in the non-Markovian master equation, in an effective 9-site model, we have compared the ETE for an initial pure state and an initial mixed state. We observe that the initial pure state relaxes efficiently to increase the trapping at the RCC. We further illustrate that the coherence play a competitive role to block the back transfer of excitation from RCC pigment to FMO complex and hence to maximize the ETE

Estimation of temporal separation of slow light pulses in atomic vapors by weak measurement

We show how two circular polarization components of a linearly polarized pulse, propagating through a coherently driven dilute atomic vapor, can be well resolved in time domain by weak measurement. Slower group velocity of one of the components due to electromagnetically induced transparency leads to a differential group delay between the two components. For low number density, this delay may not be large enough to temporally resolve the two components. We show how this can be enhanced in terms of mean time of arrival of the output pulse through a post-selected polarizer. We demonstrate the idea with all the analytical and numerical results, with a specific example of alkali atoms

Generation of non-classical states of photons from metal-dielectric interface: a novel architecture for quantum information processing

We show that it is possible to generate photons in nonclassical states from a metal-dielectric interface using quantum emitters on the interface. The photons emitted into the surface plasmon mode from the initially excited emitters radiate out in free space in a cone-shaped geometry. When detected at two detectors, these photons exhibit anti-coalescence, a clear signature of nonclassicality. Such a system can also be employed as a building block for a distributed quantum network. We further show that it is indeed feasible to implement our model using available technology.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Sharply tunable group velocity in alkali vapors using a single low-power control field

We show how a single linearly polarized control field can produce a sharply tunable group velocity of a weak probe field at resonance in a four-level atomic configuration of alkali vapors. The dispersion can be switched from normal to anomalous along with vanishing absorption, just by changing intensity of the resonant control field. In addition, by allowing different intensities of the different polarization components of the control field, the anomalous dispersion can be switched back to the normal. This thereby creates a "valley of anomaly" in group index variation and offers two sets of control field intensities, for which the system behaves like a vacuum. The explicit analytical expressions for the probe coherence are provided along with all physical explanations. We demonstrate our results in $J = 1/2 \leftrightarrow J = 1/2$ transition for D_1 lines in alkali atoms, in which one can obtain a group index as large as $3.2\times10^{8}$ and as negative as $-1.5\times10^{5}$ using a control field with power as low as 0.017 mW/cm$^2$ and 9.56 mW/cm$^2$

Two-bit Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm using an atomic ensemble

The first optical proposal for the realization of the two-bit version of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm [D. Deutsch and R. Jozsa, Proc. R. Soc. London A {\bf 493}, 553 (1992)] is presented. The proposal uses Stark shifts in an ensemble of atoms and degenerate sources of photons. The photons interact dispersively with an atomic ensemble, leading to an effective Hamiltonian in atom-field basis, which is useful for performing the required two-qubit operations. Combining these with a set of one-qubit operations, the algorithm can be implemented. A discussion of the experimental feasibility of the proposal is given.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, IOP, submitte