München 2004 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 11: Fallen und Kühlung

Q 11.4: Vortrag

Montag, 22. März 2004, 17:15–17:30, HS 224

Normal-mode spectrum of a single intracavity atom. — •T. Puppe, P. Maunz, I. Schuster, N. Syassen, P.W.H. Pinkse, and G. Rempe — Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany

The normal-mode splitting is the characteristic signature of the fundamental interaction of an individual atom with a single mode of the light field. The measurement of the normal-mode spectrum has been complicated by variations of the mean atom number in beam experiments as well as fluctuations of the atom-cavity coupling due to atomic motion. Here, single laser-cooled atoms are trapped in a far-detuned intracavity dipole trap [1] upon detection. Periods of cavity cooling [2] are sandwitched between the probe intervals to further localise the atom and monitor the coupling at the same time. This preparation of a single, well localised atom strongly coupled to an optical mode allows to measure a well resolved normal-mode splitting in two ways: The mean transmission of the near-resonant cavity-QED field represents the cavity excitation spectrum. Moreover, also the spectrum of the excitation of the atom as the second component of the strongly coupled system could be measured for the first time: In the presence of cavity cooling, trap loss is caused by spontaneously scattered photons. The atomic excitation is therefore inversely proportional to the storage time.

[1] J. Ye, D.W. Vernooy, and H.J. Kimble, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 4987 (1999).

[2] P. Maunz et al., to be published. P. Horak et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 4974 (1997). V. Vuletić and S. Chu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 3787 (2000).