Novel Spectroscopy with Two-Level Atoms in Squeezed Fields

Abstract

Squeezed light is an example of a nonclassical light field — that is, a field for which quantum mechanics is essential for its description. Since the quantum-mechanical nature of squeezed light is its distinguishing feature, it is clearly of interest to identify situations in which this field behaves in a radically different way from its nearest classical equivalent. The obvious area to examine is the interaction with atomic systems, and in this chapter, we describe situations in which the use of squeezed light leads to novel effects in atomic spectroscopy. It is demonstrated that the interaction of the squeezed vacuum with even the simplest atomic system, the two-level atom, produces an astonishingly rich range of phenomena. Squeezed light may interact with atomic systems in totally different ways to ordinary light. By isolating the unique characteristics of the squeezed vacuum in its interaction with atomic systems, we open the way to finding new applications. In this chapter, we concentrate on effects which occur in single two-level atoms or systems of two-level atoms, as three-level atoms are treated in a separate chapter of this book. The emphasis is on identifying phenomena which occur in a squeezed vacuum, but which do not occur for fields with a classical analogue. We shall not describe methods for generating squeezed light.KeywordsPure StateRabi FrequencyHole BurningDriving FieldDispersive ProfileThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.