Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 54: Quantum Effects: QED

Q 54.1: Talk

Thursday, March 17, 2011, 14:30–14:45, SCH A01

(contribution withdrawn) Observation of squeezed light with one atom — alexei ourjoumtsev, alexander kubanek, markus koch, christian sames, pepijn pinkse, gerhard rempe, and •karim murr — Max-Planck-Institut fuer Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching

For a coherent or vacuum state of the electromagnetic field, the quantum uncertainties of its fluctuating electric and magnetic components are equal and minimize the Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. It is nowadays possible to reduce the value of one of the uncertainties below the vacuum level at the expense of increasing the other. Such "squeezed" states are so far generated using macroscopic media only, such as atomic vapours, optical fibres or non-linear crystals.

That a single atom can produce squeezed light has been predicted almost 30 years ago by Walls and Zoller. However, it has been foreseen by Mandel in 1982 that the squeezing generated by one atom would be "at least an order of magnitude more difficult" to observe than antibunching. Despite experimental efforts, single-atom squeezing has escaped observation.

We observe squeezed near-infrared light generated by a single neutral atom trapped inside a high-finesse optical cavity. With an excitation beam containing on average only 2 photons per system's lifetime, the measured field quadratures clearly present a phase-dependent nonclassical response. I will discuss the history on the theory of single-atom squeezing as well as our experiment for a broad audience.