Mesoscopic multistability outside the rotating wave approximation

Abstract

The interaction of a mesoscopic system of two-level Rydberg atoms with a coherently driven single cavity mode is treated outside the rotating wave approximation (RWA). This yields a system of non-autonomous Maxwell–Bloch equations that can be solved using Fourier decomposition of both field and atomic variables up to first harmonics and to O(Q−1), where Q is the cavity quality factor. For the absorber and amplifier regimes, the first harmonic component of the output field (outside the RWA) exhibits closed hysteresis loops compared with hysteresis cycles for the non-oscillatory (fundamental) component within the RWA. A cooperative switching diagram (output field versus cooperative atomic parameter) outside the RWA shows overlapping branches in the resonant case and closed loops in the non-resonant case.