Relativity and quantum optics: accelerated atoms in optical cavities

Lopp, Richard; Martín-Martínez, Eduardo; Page, Don N.

doi:10.1088/1361-6382/aae750

Cited by 17 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(72 reference statements)

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“…[35,36]). Expression (37) is only valid for n = 1 when the IR cutoff is below all relevant scales (see Appendix A for details).…”

Section: B Linear Coupling: Transition Probability In Arbitrary Dimen...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Let us now plot and interpret Eq. (37). We will look at how the resonant peak of the transition probability behaves as a function of spectral width σ and detector gap Ω, keeping the wavepacket peak frequency constant (the detector gap is tuned to sweep across the spectral bandwidth of the wavepacket including the 'resonance' case Ω = |k 0 |).…”

Section: B Linear Coupling: Transition Probability In Arbitrary Dimen...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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What makes a particle detector click

Tjoa,

Gutiérrez,

Sachs

et al. 2021

Preprint

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We highlight fundamental differences in the models of light-matter interaction between the behaviour of Fock state detection in free space versus optical cavities. To do so, we study the phenomenon of resonance of detectors with Fock wavepackets as a function of their degree of monochromaticity, the number of spatial dimensions, the linear or quadratic nature of the light-matter coupling, and the presence (or absence) of cavity walls in space. In doing so we show that intuition coming from quantum optics in cavities does not straightforwardly carry to the free space case. For example, in (3 + 1) dimensions the detector response to a Fock wavepacket will go to zero as the wavepacket is made more and more monochromatic and in coincidence with the detector's resonant frequency. This is so even though the energy of the free-space wavepacket goes to the expected finite value of Ω in the monochromatic limit. This is in contrast to the behaviour of the light-matter interaction in a cavity (even a large one) where the probability of absorbing a Fock quantum is maximized when the quantum is more monochromatic at the detector's resonance frequency. We trace this crucial difference to the fact that monochromatic Fock states are not normalizable in the continuum, thus physical Fock states need to be constructed out of normalizable wavepackets whose energy density goes to zero in the monochromatic limit as they get spatially delocalized.

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“…[35,36]). Expression (37) is only valid for n = 1 when the IR cutoff is below all relevant scales (see Appendix A for details).…”

Section: B Linear Coupling: Transition Probability In Arbitrary Dimen...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Linear Coupling: Transition Probability In Arbitrary Dimen...mentioning

confidence: 99%

What makes a particle detector click

Tjoa,

Gutiérrez,

Sachs

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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show abstract

“…The study of quantum fields via particle detectors has been a fruitful avenue of research in quantum field theory in curved spaces, quantum optics and in relativistic quantum information [1][2][3][4][5]. Particle detectors are nonrelativistic localized quantum systems that couple locally to quantum fields obtaining information about the field state.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Zero mode suppression of superluminal signals in light-matter interactions

Tjoa

Martín-Martínez

2019

Phys. Rev. D

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We show how two Unruh-DeWitt detectors that do not couple to the zero mode of a quantum field can exchange information faster than the speed of light. We analyze the specific cases of periodic and Neumann boundary conditions in flat spacetime with arbitrary spatial dimensions, and we show that the superluminal signal strength is only polynomially suppressed with the distance to the lightcone. Therefore, in any relativistic scenario modelling the light-matter interaction where a zero mode is present, particle detectors should explicitly couple to the zero mode. * e2tjoa@uwaterloo.ca † emartinmartinez@uwaterloo.ca 1 Note that in the context of algebraic quantum field theory (AQFT), sometimes this is known as a version of locality [22,30].

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“…Although a full light-matter interaction description would require a 3 + 1D setup [37], as proof of principle we will assume that each cavity contains a 1 + 1D massless scalar field, φ(t, x), with a free Hamiltonian…”

Section: Our Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Unruh Effect in Slow Motion

2021

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We show under what conditions an accelerated detector (e.g., an atom/ion/molecule) thermalizes while interacting with the vacuum state of a quantum field in a setup where the detector’s acceleration alternates sign across multiple optical cavities. We show (non-perturbatively) in what regimes the probe `forgets’ that it is traversing cavities and thermalizes to a temperature proportional to its acceleration, the same as it would in free space. Then we analyze in detail how this thermalization relates to the renowned Unruh effect. Finally, we use these results to propose an experimental testbed for the direct detection of the Unruh effect at relatively low probe speeds and accelerations, potentially orders of magnitude below previous proposals.

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Relativity and quantum optics: accelerated atoms in optical cavities

Cited by 17 publications

References 25 publications

What makes a particle detector click

What makes a particle detector click

Zero mode suppression of superluminal signals in light-matter interactions

The Unruh Effect in Slow Motion

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