Atomic deflection conditioned by entangled light waves

Abstract

We investigate deflection of atomic beams on two co-propagating standing waves excited in a bimodal cavity. The novelty is that the standing waves are in an entangled, photon-number correlated state and interactions with three-level atoms of V-type and Λ-type configurations are considered. The splitting of atomic states, quantum interference effects and spatial atomic localization due to phase measurements is investigated on the framework of both the conditional position distributions of atomic wave packets as well as the Wigner functions for atomic translation variables. It is demonstrated that these quantities for V-type atoms passing the cavity are essentially modified when entangled states of standing waves are used instead of statistically independent waves. The deflection patterns and the Wigner functions are also modified if atoms are initially prepared in a superposition of low-level states. It is best demonstrated for the Λ-type configuration, where transition through the Raman resonance is realized, and proposed for testing superposition states in a new non-spectroscopic manner.