Optomechanically induced anomalous population inversion in a hybrid system

Abstract

We consider a two-level atom interacting with a quantized field in an optomechanical cavity and study the population inversion of the atom in this hybrid optomechanical system. Analytical solutions of the excited state population in the hybrid system are derived for various initial states of the cavity field and the mechanical mirror in the limit of weak single-photon coupling regime. Due to the mechanical mirror, the population inversion exhibits anomalous behavior, compared to the results predicted by the Jaynes–Cummings (JC) model. For an initial Fock state cavity field, we show that the atomic population inversion can undergo collapses and revivals induced by the mechanical mirror which is in a Fock state for the resonant atom-field interaction. When the cavity field is far-detuned from the atomic transition, the atom can couple to the mechanical mirror effectively via the JC interaction. In this case, the atomic population inversion can display either full Rabi oscillations or the collapse and revival behavior induced by a Fock state or a coherent state of the mechanical mirror, respectively. We also explore an experimentally more relevant situation when the mechanical mirror is initially in a mixed state. We derive an analytical expression of the excited state population via the unitary evolution for the density operator of the whole system. We find that the population inversion in this case exhibits slower collapse and smaller revival amplitude due to the initial mixture of the mechanical state. For an initial coherent state cavity field, we show that the predicted collapse regime in the original JC model can display nonzero oscillating values. Our analytical predications are further confirmed with numerical calculations in which the dissipation mechanism from the system is included.