The micromaser cavity makes two-photon operation possible in two ways. It inhibits single-photon transitions that are not resonant with the cavity, and it strongly enhances the emission of photon pairs. Without the cavity, Rydberg atoms in the upper level would radiate a single photon and jump down to the intermediate level. This process would deplete the upper level before two-photon emission could build up.
Although the basic principle of a two-photon micromaser is the same as that of its simple one-photon cousin, the way in which it starts up and operates differs significantly. A strong fluctuation, corresponding to the unlikely emission of several photon pairs in close succession, is required to trigger the system; as a result, the field builds up only after a period of "lethargy." Once this fluctuation has occurred, the field in the cavity is relatively strong and stimulates emission by subsequent atoms, causing the device to reach full power (about 10-18 watt) rapidly. A two-photon laser system recently developed by a group at Oregon State University operates along a different scheme but displays essentially the same metastable behavior.
The success of micromasers and other similar devices has prompted cavity QED researchers to conceive new experiments, some of which would have been dismissed as pure science fiction only a few years ago. Perhaps the most remarkable of these as yet hypothetical experiments are those that deal with the forces experienced by an atom in a cavity containing only a vacuum or a small field made of a few photons.
The first thought experiment starts with a single atom and an empty cavity tuned to a transition between two of the atom's states. This coupled-oscillator system has two nonstationary states: one corresponds to an excited atom in an empty cavity, the other to a de-excited atom with one photon. The system also has two stationary states, obtained by addition or subtraction of the nonstationary ones--addition of the nonstationary states corresponds to the in-phase oscillation mode of the two-pendulum model, and subtraction of the states corresponds to the out-of-phase mode. These stationary states differ in energy by a factor equal to Planck's constant, h, times the exchange frequency between the atom and the cavity.
This exchange frequency is proportional to the amplitude of the cavity's resonant vacuum field. Typically this field vanishes at the walls and near the ports by which the atom enters and leaves the cavity. It reaches a maximum at the cavity center. As a result, the atom-cavity coupling (and thus the energy difference between the system's two stationary states) is zero when the atom enters and leaves the cavity and goes to a maximum when the atom reaches the middle of the cavity.
The fundamental laws of mechanics say, however, that for a change in the relative position of two objects to lead to a change in energy, a force must be exerted between these objects. In other words, the atom experiences a push or a pull, albeit an infinitesimal one, as it moves through the empty cavity. If the system is prepared in the higher-energy state, its energy reaches a maximum at the center--the atom is repelled. If the system is in the lower-energy state, the interaction attracts the atom to the cavity center. These forces have been predicted independently by our group and by a group at Garching and the University of New Mexico.
For Rydberg atoms in a microwave cavity with a typical exchange frequency of 100 kilohertz, the potential energy difference is about one ten-billionth of an electron volt. This corresponds to a temperature of a few microkelvins and to the kinetic energy of an atom moving with a velocity of a few centimeters per second. If the speed of the incoming atom is less than this critical value, the potential barrier caused by the atom-cavity interaction will reflect the atom back, or, conversely, the potential well will be deep enough to trap it near the cavity center. Atoms in such slow motion can now be produced by laser cooling [see "Laser Trapping of Neutral Particles," by Steven Chu; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, February 1992]; these tiny forces may yet be observed.
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3 Comments
Add Comment"spontaneous emission of a photon by an excited atom is in a sense induced by vacuum fluctuations."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Induced"? I knew about vacuum fluctuations as an explanation for the Casmir effect, but I'd not heard this theory. While the beginning of this article is written in a tone of "old news" (which is always the best kind of science to deeply reflect on), I wonder if this theory is still new enough to be controversial.
I'm especially curious about the "in a sense" part. Can someone here explain that to me? Such complications are frequently omitted and/or horribly abused by pseudo-scientific types who fail to realize that quantum physicists (when deprived of their wave functions) often resort to loose metaphors. I'd like to know where this metaphor breaks down.
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I'm impressed by the technical feat of a grad student putting a beryllium ion 80 nanometers away from itself (on the order of a thousand times its stationary diameter and ten times the wave packet's width).
http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/grp10/upload/bkthesis.pdf
And likewise impressed by the measurement of decoherence over time.
http://phd.fisica.unimi.it/assets/docs/PC_and_Seminars/0910/SlideHaroche.pdf
Perhaps those quantum optics x-ray lasers could one day be used for fusion ignition?
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7382/full/nature10721.html
By the way, why weren't Rydberg atoms defined until halfway through the article? If I'd not already known, I would have been a bit confused. And some of the superscripts are missing; for example, 10 to the 23 was rendered as 1023.
"And some of the superscripts are missing; for example, 10 to the 23 was rendered as 1023."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree: Presenting numbers without their proper superscripts and subscripts is dumb, and it should never be allowed to happen under any circumstances. Yes, it was allowed to happen out of human carelessness, and nobody or nothing else can be blamed.
If there is any difficulty in typesetting and presentation, then the people of Scientific American should use 10^23, which is generally understood for exponentiation.
There is also "ten to the 23rd power" - just use Plain English. Never allow it to be presented as a four-digit number.
"Atoms and photons in small cavities behave completely unlike those in free space."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"completely unlike" ?? Very questionable.
If even one similiarity can be found, then that is a false statement. I am sure that some similarities can be found.
For a quick example of one, the rest mass of a photon is zero, no matter what.
As for the atoms, their electrons continue to "orbit" the nuclei of the atoms and the energy levels of those electrons continue to take on discrete levels according to the rules of quantum mechanics.
The nuclei of the atoms continue to behave completely the same, whether the atoms are in cavities, in free space, or in condensed matter.
You remind me of the TV commercials that advertize the products as "perfect" or "ideal". Well, no - No commercial product is perfect or ideal. We don't even have ideal gases here, nor ideal simple machines such as levers.