Rabi Oscillations in the Jaynes-

Cummings Model
Name: Low Chi Yang
Student ID : 1402951
Supervisor: Dr Tan Eng Kiang
Introduction
JCM - a two level atom interacts with single mode cavity
field in electric dipole interaction
The cavity field is quantised in terms of photon.
Physical realisation of two level atom (Rydberg atom) and
one atom maser provides incentives to study more about
JCM
Aim and Objectives
Review semiclassical treatment of a two level atom interacts
with single mode light
Study and review the quantisation of EM waves
Investigates and explores the Rabi oscillations of a two level
atom in JCM with various initial field state
Determine the time evolution operator for generalised
interaction. Specific generalisation of interaction is
investigated include Intensity dependent and multi-photon
interaction
Scope and limitation
Single mode light source only, generalisation beyond single
mode in JCM is out of scope
Only two level atoms are used in investigation
Assumption rotating wave approximation
Damping mechanism is not considered
Dipole electric interaction assumed
Literature Review
Rotating wave approximation
Using the identity

where n is sufficiently large

 The second can term can be ignored because it is rotating
faster than the first term
Semiclassical treatment
Wavefuction of two-level atom

where
is the wavefunction of the ground state of the atom
is the wavefunction of the excited state of the atom
while is the transitional probability coefficient of the atom
is orthogonal and normalized at any time , so does the total
wavefunction of the atom.
where

represent the eigenenergy of the two level atom in respective state

and Ee Eg = o .
 Equation of motion

(1)

(2)
where
 is the interaction Hamiltonian which can take many forms
base on the interaction chosen for study. Note that the
argument of time and position is omitted for purpose of
clarity
 Interaction chosen is electric dipole interaction
where the interacting electric field, is a harmonic cosine
wave with the driving frequency of and e is the charge of
electron. The spatial variation of the field is ignored due to
relative small dimension of the atom.

is the position vector of the th electron of the atom

with the nucleus of the atom as the origin of the
coordinate system
Exact solution using RWA
The equation of motion (1) and (2) is reduced to if the
electric field is polarised in x direction
 Solving these two equation with initial condition of the atom
in ground state gives the excitation probability

(3)

where is known as Rabi frequency and is defined as

 Again a graph of excitation probability is plotted
V is set to 1 for simplicity
Excitation probability

The solid line represents zero detuning, the broken line represents the
detuning magnitude of 0.5 and the bold line represents the detuning
magnitude of 1
 One can see that the excitation probability oscillates from
zero to one in the case of zero detuning. This phenomenon is
known as Rabi oscillation. The effects of the detuning are
decrease the maximum excitation probability and increase
the frequency of the Rabi oscillation.
Quantum Harmonic Oscillator
Important features
Creation and annihilation operator

where is the energy eigenstates of QHO which

Its eigenenergy are given next slide
 The energy are equally spaced
Quadrature operators is defined as and related to squeezed
state which is discussed in later section
Quantisation of EM wave
The important result would be

(4)

And electric field operator

(5)
Single Fock State
Single mode Single Fock state
Single mode Single Fock state
The mean photon number

Variance
Thermal State
For a cavity maintain at temperature T

Mean photon number

Variance
Coherent State
In Fock number state basis

The mean photon number

Since it follow Poisson Distribution , its variance same as

mean
Coherent state
Another feature of coherent state is quadrature uncertainty
minimum
Squeezed State
Squeezed state is a state where one of its components of
quadrature uncertainty is smaller than its quadrature
minimum. This can be achieved by increasing the uncertainty
of another component.
For example squeezed coherent state can be achieved by
decreasing while increasing the asda so that
the is still the same.
 One example is squeezed vacuum given as
Interaction Picture
The operators and the states are time dependent
The transformation is related by

and the interaction Hamiltonian is given as

Dipole operator
The dipole operator can expressed in terms of

(6)

due to the odd parity of the position operator and the opposite
parity of the two level atom state
Interaction Hamiltonian

By using equation (5) and equation (6)

where
Total Hamiltonian in JCM

with
Methodology and work plan
Transform the total Hamiltonian into interaction picture
using the unitary operator given S.M Barnett s Methods in
Quantum Optics
Obtain the time evolution operator
Plot the inversion population with different initial field state
using Matlab
Determined the time evolution operator of generalised
interaction
Plot the inversion population of intensity dependent and 2
photon interaction with coherent state as initial field state
Result and Discussion
JCM Hamiltonian in Interaction Picture
By using equation below

With unitary operator given as

where is arbitrary phase.

 By setting

By applying rotating wave approximation

 It becomes
Time evolution operator
The evolution of state is given by

with the initial atom-field state given by tensor product of

initial atomic state and field state.
Thus it is necessary to obtain the time evolution operator
 Time evolution operator is given by

Thus by expanding the exponential term in power series , the

time evolution operator can be expressed as matrix operation
given in the next slide
 With c as cosine and s as sine
And
Population Inversion with Arbitrary
Initial Field State
For general atomic initial state
 with the population inversion defined as
 Initial excited state, the population inversion becomes
 For initial ground state, the population inversion becomes
 Note that in the next section , all cases are in zero detuning
with initial excited atomic state and lambda is set to one
unless it is specify explicitly.
Single fock state n=3

Thus the population inversion is

Therefore with n=3

Population Inversion (single Fock state
n=3)
 The figure shows that the population inversion of single Fock
state oscillates symmetrically from 1 to -1 with Rabi
frequency . n 1
Closely resemble semiclassical treatment with extra term of

n 1
Vacuum State

Thus the population inversion becomes

Population Inversion Vacuum State
 One can see that for vacuum field state, the population
inversion oscillates from 1 to -1 . However the Rabi
oscillation occurs at lambda or in this case is 1 which is
known as vacuum Rabi frequency
Remarkable feature of quantised field compare to classical
field as even with no excitation of the field; there is
interaction between the atom and the field
Responsible for Spontaneous decay of atom in cavity
Vacuum State
Initial ground state
 Thus, there is no interaction between the atom and the
vacuum field state
justify that there is no spontaneous excitation agreeing with
semiclassical treatment
Coherent State
Population inversion (coherent state)
mean photon number =0
Population Inversion (coherent state)
with mean photon number = 1
Population inversion (coherent state)
with mean Photon number =10
Population inversion (coherent state)
with mean photon number =50
Population inversion (coherent state)
with mean photon number =100
 For the second graph it show chaotic behaviour similar to
thermal state which is shown later
The first collapse time is relatively same for all the mean
photon
The revival time is increasing with increasing mean photon
Number of oscillations under the envelope also increasing
with increasing mean photon number.
Thermal state
Population inversion (Thermal state)
with mean photon =0
Population inversion (Thermal state)
with mean photon =1
Population inversion (Thermal state)
with mean photon =10
Population inversion (Thermal state)
with mean photon =50
 Thermal state with mean photon number of 1 is similar to
coherent state with mean photon number of 1 is due to
similarity in photon number statistic given next slide
Photon Number Statistic (thermal state
<n>=1)
Photon Number Statistic (Coherent
state <n>=1)
 For the mean photon number of ten and fifty, it show the
same collapsing behaviour same as coherent state
However , the revival of the Rabi oscillations does not occur
in later time due to wide range of Rabi frequencies interfere
with each other and cancel out
This property is illustrated in the next figure
Photon Number Statistic (Coherent
state <n>=100)
Binomial state
Population Inversion (Binomial state p=
0.1 M=100)
Population Inversion (Binomial state p=
0.5 M=100)
Population Inversion (Binomial state p=
1 M=3)
Population Inversion (Binomial state p=
0.9 M=30)
 It extrapolates between single Fock state and Coherent state.
It show collapsing and revival behaviour too.
Squeezed vaccum
Population Inversion (Squeezed
Vacuum r=0)
Population Inversion (Squeezed
Vacuum r=0.8)
 For squeezed vacuum state with r=0 , one would expect that
it would be reduced to vacuum state.
For r= 0.8 population inversion shows irregular oscillation.
This is due to change in photon number statistic which other
components of the Rabi frequencies interfere with vacuum
Rabi oscillation.
Effects of Detuning
For non zero detuning, the population inversion is given as
below with coherent state with mean photon number of 10
as initial field state (solid line is zero detuning, broken line is
non zero detuning)
Population Inversion with detuning of
0.5
Population Inversion with detuning of 1
 For slight detuning or 0.5 and 1 , the effects is not obvious
Population Inversion with detuning of 5
Population Inversion with detuning of
10
 The effects of large detuning is shifting the population
inversion vertically.
Less interaction between atom and field
Increase the collapse and revival time.
Generalised interaction Hamiltonian
Time evolution operator
Intensity dependent
 The population inversion becomes

with coherent state with mean photon number of 20 as initial

field state
Population inversions (intensity
dependent)
 It shows regular and periodic collapse and revival
The revival is almost complete
Multiphoton interaction
 The population inversion becomes

For special case of two photon (k=2)

Two photon interaction
 Similar to intensity dependent interaction
However the revival is not as complete as the intensity
dependent reaction
Possible application
To generate a pulse of excited atoms with intensity
dependent interaction.
Conclusion
 All show initial collapse except vacuum state and single Fock
state
All show revival except thermal state.
Intensity dependent and 2 photon interaction show regular
and periodic revival and collapse.
Future works
Analytic solution of revival and collapse time can be
investigated
Other properties of atom can be investigated such as entropy
and coherence.
Discarding rotating wave approximation
Multi atom interaction
Properties of field state can be investigated including various
quasi probability function.