Cavity QED analog of spin

Abstract

Using the even and odd coherent states, we show that a single mode cavity field, prepared in a coherent state by a classical source and manipulated by both dispersive and resonant interactions with atoms, is analogous to a spin one-half particle interacting with Stern–Gerlach magnets where the parity of the field is the analog of spin. Because the number of photons in the cavity may be large, the system we describe can exhibit quantum effects on at least a mesoscopic scale. We show that entangled two and three cavity systems can be generated. The three cavity case can be used to demonstrate the contradiction between local realistic theories and quantum mechanics in the manner proposed by Greenberger, Horne and Zeilinger in 1989 [13].