Pump-operator treatment of the ion-trap laser

Abstract

We present a detailed treatment of a laser process that has been predicted for an experiment with a single trapped Ca ϩ ion. It is demonstrated how the complex multilevel system can be understood as a coherently pumped three-level scheme with time-delayed pumping out of the metastable lower laser level. This is described by a pump operator, which simplifies the numerical analysis substantially and allows for a treatment of more complicated systems. ͓S1050-2947͑98͒08809-X͔

Experimental realization of a one-atom laser in the regime of strong coupling

“…Moreover, as documented in Ref. [13], for large l the Mandel Q parameter exhibits two maxima as a function of I 3 , one around the conventional threshold and one for large pump values [7,10,17], which gradually develop into a single broad minimum with decreasing l. In all cases,n, g (2) , and Q, as well as the various atomic populations, display pronounced functional dependencies on the pump level I 3 that require a self-consistent treatment of atom and cavity field, here in the fully quantum regime as opposed to the limit of large (N 0 , n 0 ) in conventional laser theories.…”

“…B for decreasing l indicates the continuous passage away from the domain of conventional laser operation and into a regime of strong coupling where various nonclassical features emerge (e.g., g (2) (0) < 1), as predicted in prior treatments of one-atom lasers [2,[4][5][6][7][9][10][11][12]. Figure B(d) provides a global perspective of some of these characteristics over a wider range of the pump intensity I 3 for l = l 0 relevant to our experiment.…”

“…Although a number of theoretical treatments related to a one-atom laser have appeared in the literature [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], this prior work has not been specific to the parameter range of our experiment as reported in Ref. [1].…”

“…[1], a one-atom laser operated in a regime of strong coupling with (N 0 , n 0 ) 1 will evidence qualitatively different characteristics than those of more familiar conventional lasers. The question then arises as how best to identify a laser in this new regime, with diverse criteria suggested and analyzed in prior work on one-atom lasers [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. The perspective that we adopt here is to trace the lineage of our one-atom laser from a conventional regime continuously into the domain of strong coupling.…”

The Deterministic Generation of Photons by Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics

“…It has been theoretically discussed in many papers [81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90]. The gain medium is a single atom which couples photons into the resonant mode of the optical cavity.…”