Quantum collective effects in a dilute cloud of two-level atoms interacting with a classical light

Author(s)

Tiago Santiago do Espirito Santo

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Carlos.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Física de São Carlos (IFSC/BT)
• Defense date: 2020-04-03

Examining board members

Romain Pierre Marcel Bachelard; Celso Jorge Villas Bôas; Francois Michel Claude Impens; Felipe Arruda de Araujo Pinheiro; Francisco Ednilson Alves dos Santos

• Advisor: Romain Pierre Marcel Bachelard

Abstract

The collective scattering of light by a large number of coupled scatterers yields a rich many-body physics, yet treating such a problem in the quantum regime is a challenge. In this thesis, we consider a large atomic cloud in free space and driven by a monochromatic light, where the vacuum modes induce long-range dipole-dipole interactions. In order to study clouds of hundreds of particles, higher order correlation terms are neglected, keeping only quantum correlations between pair of atoms: this allows to reduce the number of degrees of freedom from 22N in the full quantum model to N2. Most of the works in the literature on dipole-dipole interactions have been performed in the linear optics limit, and our techniques allow to compare classical to beyond-semi-classical results. In particular, superradiance and subradiance have been reported in the decay dynamics of the cloud. Differently, by considering a system in the ground state and switching on the pump, we show that superradiance is also present in the Rabi oscillations at a rate obtained from using a single-dipole model for the radiated intensity. A frequency shift in the Rabi oscillations is also reported, which can be interpreted, in a linear dispersion theory, as a signature of a collective multimode vacuum Rabi splitting. While the classical dipoles model captures correctly the dynamics in the low-intensity regime, it fails for higher saturation, where semi-classical methods can be applied successfully. In particular, we observe a quantum subradiant decay in the intensity of the radiated field in the saturated regime. Furthermore, considering the decay dynamics starting from an initially strongly driven cloud, we observed that the states with n < N/2 excited atoms decays much slower than the ones with n > N/2: in other words, the upper part of the Dicke ladder is characterized by a superradiant emission, and the lower part by a subradiant one. Finally, investigating the fluorescence spectrum, we obtained quantum cooperative effects that modify the steady-state spectrum: additional sidebands at twice the Rabi frequency for the system driven at resonance and, out of resonance, an asymmetry in the peaks at the generalized Rabi frequency, and for all detection angles. We also present preliminary results of a sensor model that can capture the time evolution of the spectrum in the decay dynamics, a situation that the quantum regression theorem fails to describe. Several of these results were discussed in parallel with experimental data obtained by an experimental group of collaborators, and others aim to guide future experiments. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 18/12653-2 - Lieb-Robinson bounds and superradiance in ultracold atomic clouds
• Grantee: Tiago Santiago do Espirito Santo
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)