Freiburg 2019 – scientific programme
Sessions | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
FM: Fall Meeting
FM 24: Quantum Sensing: Entanglement and Beyond Shot Noise
FM 24.3: Talk
Monday, September 23, 2019, 17:00–17:15, 3044
Probing Quantum Vacuum Fluctuations Using Electro-Optical Sampling — Frieder Lindel1, •Robert Bennett1,2, and Stefan Yoshi Buhmann1,2 — 1Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 79104 Freiburg, Germany — 2Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
Quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field present an intrinsic limit to the sensitivity of optic based detectors, such as for example the one used recently to detect gravitational waves. Furthermore they govern important observable processes in nature like spontaneous emission, the Lamb shift or dispersion forces. More recently, a new way to access these fluctuating vacuum fields has been established using electro-optical sampling [1].
Using macroscopic quantum electrodynamics we derive a general theoretical framework for the propagation of a laser field through a nonlinear crystal in the presence of vacuum fluctuations. This formalism includes absorption and dispersion as well as possible effects stemming from scattering events. We apply the framework to explore how electro-optical sampling can be used to probe different properties of the vacuum field in an experiment such as e.g. how it changes in the present of cavities or how one can access their spectral distribution and spatial correlations. Our theory can also be used for the description of spontaneous parametric down-conversion and hence for the generation of entangled photons.
[1] C. Riek et al., Science 350, 420 (2015)