Frankfurt 2006 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 29: Poster Quanteneffekte

Q 29.11: Poster

Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 16:30–18:30, Labsaal

Photon antibunching and superbunching via collectivity — •Mihai Macovei, Jörg Evers, and Christoph H. Keitel — Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, 69117 Heidelberg.

Light sources with unusual properties are required for many current schemes of modern quantum optics [1]. We show here that the fluorescence light emitted by a sample of few-level atoms interacting only via the surrounding thermostat exhibits non-classical properties. In a small sample of three-level atoms in ladder configuration [2], the emitted light can be switched from sub- to super-poissonian and from anti-bunching to super-bunching controlled by the mean number of atoms in the sample. Larger samples allow to generate super-bunched light over a wide range of bath parameters and thus fluorescence light intensities. We also identify parameter ranges where the fields emitted on the two transitions are strongly correlated or anti-correlated, such that the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality is violated indicating quantum entanglement of photons. We further discuss collective non-classical features in spatially extended two-level samples.

[1] D. F. Walls and G. J. Milburn, Quantum Optics (Springer-Verlag, 1995).

[2] M. Macovei, J. Evers, and C. H. Keitel, Phys. Rev. A 72, (in print 2005).