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Vacuum-field Rabi oscillations in a bimodal cavity

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Quantum Opt. 4 (1992) 85-91. Printed in the U K

Vacuum-field Rabi oscillations in a bimodal cavity

Ho Trung Dung and A S Shumovsky
Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Head Post Office, PO Box 19, Moscow 101w0, Russia Received 2 December 1991
Abstract. Examining the spontaneous emission of a two-level atom interacting at the same time with two modes of the cavity radiation field we show that such multimode coupling may lead to irregular patterns in the vacuum-field Rabi oscillations. It also leads to the appearance of a new line in the spontaneous emission spectra in comparison with the case of single-mode single-atom coupling.

1. Introduction

When an excited atom is placed inside a high-Q resonant cavity, after spontaneous emission the atom can reabsorb the photon and then emit it again, and so on. The atomic inversion undergoes Rabi oscillations induced by the vacuum of the radiation field. Such vacuum-field Rabi oscillations have been shown to lead to a splitting in the spontaneous emission spectra [l,2 1 as well as the absorption spectra of a system of N atoms contained in a cavity [3]. In the latter case, the magnitude of the cavity resonance splitting increases with the square root of the number of atoms inserted. This fact has been successfully employed to observe vacuum Rabi splitting in experiments on absorption spectra [4]. The effects of transition to a neighbouring level, cooperativity, multiphoton transitions [2] and cavity damping [5] on vacuumfield Rabi oscillations have also been treated. It is interesting to investigate another situation where under resonance or near-resonance conditions two modes interact effectively with the atom. The spontaneous emission of a single atom which is initially excited in the presence of N- 1 initially unexcited atoms, interacting with M modes of the field has been exactly solved under the condition that the atoms are at random space positions [ 6 ] . Our treatment, however, is closer in spirit to a recent work by Papadopoulos [7] where the author has examined the interaction of a two-level atom with M degenerate modes of radiation. It has been shown that this model is analytically tractable by introducing new Bose operators which reduce the task of finding the wavefunctions at time f to a routine exercise. The results were applied to obtaining the evolution of the atomic inversion and the Row of energy between the modes and the atom for the case of spontaneous emission and the case where only one mode is initially energetic and the atom is excited. In this paper, we relax the degenerate-mode condition but confine ourselves to the case of spontaneous emission of a two-level atom into two modes of the cavity field. We focus on analysing the influence of such a two-mode coupling on the vacuum-field
0954-8998/92/020085+07 $4.50 0 1992 IOP Publishing Ltd

85

86

Ho Trung Dung and A S Shumousky

Rabi oscillations and spontaneous emission spectra. We show that in the case of nondegenerate modes, the system exhibits noticeably different features as compared with those in the case where the modes are of the same frequency.

2. Vacuum-field Rabi oscillations

We consider a system consisting of a single two-level atom and two cavity field modes. The model Hamiltonian is a straightforward generalization of the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian [8] for the two-mode case. In the rotating wave and electric dipole approximations it is given by ( h = 1)
2 2

H= oR'

,=I

o p : a,+
,=1

g,(R+a,+ R-a:).

(1)

Here ' R and R' are pseudospin operators describing the atom of frequency o,a : and a,, i# 1 , 2 are the creation and annihilation operators for the radiation mode of frequency o,, and gl and g2are the atom-field coupling constants. It is convenient to separate the Hamiltonian (1) into two mutually commuting parts 191

H = Hoi H I
where

[Ha, H i ] =0

Ho= o(a:al
2

+ a l a 2+ R'),
2
i=l

HI=

-E Apfai+~gi(R+a,iR-af)
!=I
I >

with the detuning parameters A; being defined by

A . = o - 0,

i=l,2.

(4)

Since we assume a lossless cavity and consider the case of spontaneous emission where the atom is initially excited and the cavity field is initially empty, only three states of the combined atom-field system
11)- le; 0,O)
P)=Ig;1,0)
1 3 ) Ig; ~ 0,1)

(5)

are to be dealt with. Using these states as a basis, one can write the matrix representations of Ha and HI as
H, = q o I

(6)

Vacuum Rabi oscillations in a bimodal cavity

87

where I is a 3 x 3 unit matrix. The eigenvalues of HI in (7) are to be found from the third-order characteristic equation

X 3 + (A1 + A2)X2- (g?+&-AlAz)XThey read

(g:AZ+&Al)=O.

(8)

XI,,=-fA&(&+&+:A2)1'2 X3= -A for the particular case of two degenerate modes ( A , = A2=A), and

(9)

xl= -:~I+:(P?-3~2)1n~~~(e) x2= -~r,+:(~U:-3~2)'"COS(e+~~)

x3 = -+PI ++(pi - 3/,L2)"2 cos(@ + $E)

where
P I = AI

(10)

+ A2

P Z = -(d +&- AI&)

~3=-(g:&+&Ai)

in general. Now by writing the wavefunction for the system in the course of time as [C,(f)ll)+Cdf)l2)+ c3(t)13)1 and solving the Schrodinger equation with the initial condition
=e x p ( - h t )

I&))

(12)

IW))= le; O,O)

one gets

(C,(O)= 1, C,(O) = C,(O)= 0)

where the abbreviations

PI=

(XI - XZ)(XI - &)

8 2 = (&-xI)(x2 - X3)

83 = W3-X1)(&

- X2)

(14) have been used. Once the state vector of the system at time f is known, one can easily calculate various quantities relating to atomic coherence and statistical properties of the field. In particular, the probability of finding the atom in its excited state and the photon numbers in modes 1 and 2 are given by

P $ ) = lCI(t)l2

(dal),= lc2(f)12

(a;aJ,= IC3(Oi2

(15)

respectively. If the two modes are of the same frequency, by substituting (9) into (13),

88

Ho Trung Dung and A S Shumousky

1.0

Figorel. Evolution o f (a) the probability of finding the atom in its excited state [ P c ( l+ ) 11. (b) the photon number in mode 1 [(a:aJ,], (c) the photon number in mode 2 [(a;aJ,] for A I = A 2 = g 1 andg2=0.5g,

(14) and making use of (15) we obtain

A Pe(t)=cosft+-sin2ft 4f

where

I-f f = (d +& + $A2).

(aa )

d smft . --

(a;a,), = - sinfr

d . f

The above results are in agreement with those in [7] and show clearly that in the case of spontaneous emission into degenerate modes, the total energy is shared between the atom and the field as if there were only one interacting mode with the effective The energy of the radiation field, in turn, is shared coupling constant equal to between the modes in accordance with the ratio (&If). An example of numerical computations for (16) is presented in figure 1, from which we see that in the case of two degenerate modes the time evolution of the atomic excited-state population and the photon numbers of modes are of simple sine or cosine form. The situation is changed if the mode frequencies are different. Then, the beating of three non-commensurate eigenvalues may lead to a chaotic-like behaviour of P.(t), (a:al),and (a:a2), as can be seen in figure 2. The interacting modes no longer can be effectively treated as one mode and the field energy is now distributed between the

Fig.

Thesame asin figure 1 but for A,=O, A 2 = g , andg2=0.5g,

Vacuum Rabi oscillations i n a bimodal cavity

89

modes in such a way depending not only on the strength of the atomic coupling but also on the detuning parameters. Here we should note that even when the modes are non-degenerate, there exist particular values of the mode frequencies (for example Al=-A,, gl=gz) for which the eigenvalues of (7) are simplified and the regular evolution patterns of P c ( t ) , (a;al), and @:a2), appear again.

3. The spontaneous emission spectra

In our analysis of the spontaneous emission spectra we use the definition of the physical transient spectrum introduced by Wodkiewicz and Eberly [lo]

S(v, T) = 2r73 Re

where T is the time of the measurement, r is the bandwidth of the detecting mechanism and B is a measure of fluorescence into other modes. From the definition of the Heisenberg operators, we obtain for the two-time correlation function D(t, r) the expression D(t, r)=(R+(f+t)R-(t))

I,'

d r exp[(r- iv)r]

':I

dr exp[ -2T(T-t)](R+(t+ r ) R - ( t ) )

(17)

= (v(U)lexp[iH(t + s)]R'exp(-iHt)R= exp(iwt)C,(t)C:(t+ r ) .

exp(-iHt)(q(O))

(18)

After inserting the result (18) into (17), the integral over evaluated and one gets

and r can be easily

1
x

(r + i(v1

w - x,)

{exp[iT(Xl- X,,,)]

- exp[-rT-

iT(v - OJ - XI)])

r - i(v - w - X,) {exp[-TT-

iT(v-w -XI)]

- exp(-2TT)}

If we consider the long-time limit 1 and if we ignore the terms corresponding to exp[iT(X,-X,)] with I#m [5], retaining only those terms such that X,-X,,,=O, i.e. l = m , then

where PI are given by (14). From (20) one can see that in this limit the spontaneous emission spectra in general consist of three peaks in contrast with two peaks as in the case of the single-mode single-atom interaction [l,21. The positions of these peaks are determined by OJ +XI, l = 1, 2, 3, and since no source of relaxation has been assumed in the model, the widths of these peaks are determined by the bandwidth of the detecting mechanism r. From (20) it also follows that in the special case of two

90

Ho Trung Dung and A S Shumovsky

-L

-3

-2

-1

-IJ-wlFigure3. Spontaneous emission spectra for g,=g,, A , = O and various values of A2/g,. Other parameters are detector width r =O.lg, and the counting time T = lWp;'.

degenerate modes the height of the peak connected with X,= -A'(see equation (9)) vanishes and the total number of peaks reduces to two. In figures 3 and 4 we have used exact formula (19) to plot the spontaneous emission spectra in the long-time limit with T = lOOg;', T=O.lg, for various values of the detuning parameters and coupling constants. In figure 3 we have taken g, and g2 as equal; A,=O while A2 was varied in the unit of g , . The value A 2 = 0 implies degeneracy between the modes and, as mentioned above, the peak associated with X, is quenched resulting in a doublet structure of the spontaneous emission spectra. For moderate values of A2 we observe spectra with triplet structure which is gradually replaced by the doublet structure when the value of A 2increases, since then mode 2 is decoupled from interaction with the atom. In figure 4 we have fixed the values of the , in the unit of g,. For g,= 0 one detuning parameters as A,= -Az=g, and changed g naturally has two-peak spontaneous emission spectra characterizing the one-atom one-mode interaction. The triplet structure appears when the value of g, increases. If g, becomes large as compared with g , . the atom effectively interacts only with mode 2 and we again observe spectra with the two-peak structure. In conclusion, we have studied the vacuum-field Rabi oscillations and the splitting of the spontaneous emission spectra of an atom in a bimodal cavity. We have shown

-1

-3

-2

-1

-(J-WIFigure4. The same as in figure 3 except for A , = - A 2 = g , and g,/g, being changed.

Vacuum Rabi oscillations in a bimodal cavity

91

that due to the beating between three non-equal eigenvalues of the system, irregular patterns in the evolution of the atomic excited-state population and the photon numbers of the modes occur. The spontaneous emission spectra in the general case of detuning parameters exhibit a three-peak structure. It has also been shown that the effects of multimode coupling reveal themselves better when the modes are nondegenerate. Finally, we notice that the problem treated here is mathematically very similar to that concerning the influence of a transition to a neighbouring level on the vacuum-field Rabi oscillations [2].

References
[I] Sanchez-Mondragon J I, Narozhny N B and Eberly J H 1983 Phys. Re". Len. 51 550 [2] Aganval G S 1985 1. Opt. Soc. Am. B 2 480 [3] Aganval G S 1984 Phys. Reo. Len. 53 1732; 1991 Phys. Re". A 43 2595 [4] Kaluzny Y , Goy P, Gross M, Raimond J M and Haroche S 1983 Phys. Reu. Len. 51 1175 Raizen M G, Thomson R I , Brecha R J, Kimble H J and Carmichael H I 1989 Phys. Reu. Len. 63 240 Zhu Y, Gauthier D 1, Morin S E, Wu Q , Carmichael H J and Mossberg T W 1990 Phys. Reo. Len. 64
2499 [5] Aganval G S and Puri R R 1986 Phys. Re". A 33 1757 [6] Cummings F W 1985 Phys. Reu. Len. 54 2329; 1988 IEEE 1. Quantum Electron. 24 1346 [7] Papadopoulos G J 1988 Phys. Re". A 37 2482 [U] Jaynes E T and Cummings F W 1963 Proc. IEEE 51 89 [9] Yo0 H I and Eberly J H 1985 Phys. Rep. 118 239 [lo] Eberly J Hand Wodkiewicz K 1977 1. Opt. Soc. Am. 67 1252