The Jaynes-Cummings (JC) model is a milestone in the theory of coherent
interaction between a two-level system and a single bosonic field mode. This
tutorial aims to give a complete description of the model, analyzing the
Hamiltonian of the system, its eigenvalues and eigestates, in order to
characterize the dynamics of system and subsystems. The Rabi oscillations,
together with the collapse and revival effects, are distinguishing features of
the JC model and are important for applications in Quantum Information theory.
The framework of cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED) is chosen and two
fundamental experiments on the coherent interaction between Rydberg atoms and a
single cavity field mode are described.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures. Tutorial. Submitted to a special issue of EPJ -
ST devoted to the memory of Federico Casagrand
