Photon Emission Probabilities Research Articles

Electron beams traversing spherical nanoparticles: Analytic and numerical treatment

We present an analytic, Mie theory-based solution for the energy loss and the photon-emission probabilities in the interaction of spherical nanoparticles with electrons passing nearby and through them, in both cathodoluminescence and electron energy-loss spectroscopies. In particular, we focus on the case of penetrating electron trajectories, for which the complete fully electrodynamic and relativistic formalism has not been reported as yet. We exhibit the efficiency of this method in describing collective excitations in matter through calculations for a dispersive and lossy system, namely a sphere described by a Drude permittivity. Subsequently, we use the analytic solution to corroborate the implementation of electron-beam sources in a state-of-the-art numerical method for problems in electrodynamics, the discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (DGTD) method. We show that the two approaches produce spectra in good mutual agreement, and demonstrate the versatility of DGTD via simulations of spherical nanoparticles characterized by surface roughness. The possibility of simultaneously employing both kinds of calculations (analytic and numerical) facilitates a better understanding of the rich optical response of nanophotonic architectures excited by fast electron beams. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

SFQEDtoolkit: A high-performance library for the accurate modeling of strong-field QED processes in PIC and Monte Carlo codes

Strong-field quantum electrodynamics (SFQED) processes are central in determining the dynamics of particles and plasmas in extreme electromagnetic fields such as those present in the vicinity of compact astrophysical objects or generated with ultraintense lasers. SFQEDtoolkit is an open source library designed to allow users for a straightforward implementation of SFQED processes in existing particle-in-cell (PIC) and Monte Carlo codes. Through advanced function approximation techniques, high-energy photon emission and electron-positron pair creation probability rates and energy distributions are calculated within the locally-constant-field approximation (LCFA) as well as with more advanced models [Phys. Rev. A 99, 022125 (2019)]. SFQEDtoolkit is designed to provide users with high-performance and high-accuracy, and neat examples showing its usage are provided. In the near future, SFQEDtoolkit will be enriched to model the angular distribution of the generated particles, i.e., beyond the commonly employed collinear emission approximation, as well as to model spin and polarization dependent SFQED processes. Notably, the generality and flexibility of the presented function approximation approach makes it suitable to be employed in other areas of physics, chemistry and computer science. Program summaryProgram Title: SFQEDtoolkit (version 1.0)CPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/j7mhj3cg3m.1Developer's repository link:https://github.com/QuantumPlasma/SFQEDtoolkitLicensing provisions: GPLv3Programming language: C++, FortranNature of problem: The accurate simulation of strong-field QED processes in the interaction of particles or plasmas with strong electromagnetic fields is critical for present and future experiments with ultraintense lasers as well as to unveil the dynamics around compact astrophysical objects. State-of-the-art PIC and Monte Carlo codes implement strong-field QED processes by means of lookup tables, where the approximated function is evaluated on a fixed set of points. This typically results in numerical artifacts such as stairlike structures in the approximated function, and in a reduced efficiency when large size lookup tables are necessary. An easily implementable open-source accurate and efficient simulation tool is required to address problems at the high-intensity frontier of plasma physics and astrophysics.Solution method: Strong-field QED process rates and particle distributions are calculated by leveraging advanced approximation methods based on variable and function transformation, asymptotic expansions as well as Chebyshev polynomial expansions. This provides a numerically-stable and efficient approach that allows us to overcome all limitations of existing methods based on standard lookup tables.

Radiation from a polarized vacuum in a laser-particle collision

The probability of photon emission of a charged particle traversing a strong field becomes modified if vacuum polarization is considered. This feature is important for fundamental quantum electrodynamics processes present in extreme astrophysical environments and can be studied in a collision of a charged particle with a strong laser field. We show that for today's available 700 GeV (6.5 TeV) protons and the field provided by the next generation of lasers, the emission spectra peak is enhanced due to the vacuum polarization effect by 30% (suppressed by 65%) in comparison to the traditionally considered Compton process. This striking phenomenon offers an alternative path to the laboratory-based manifestation of vacuum polarization.

Photon bunching from an equilateral triangle of atoms

Fluorescent photon emission probability from a system of three atoms has been studied as a function of detection angles. The system under investigation consists of identical bi-level atoms forming an equilateral triangle. Only a single atom in the triangle is resonantly excited by a weak laser. The interaction mechanism among the atoms is the vacuum-mediated dipole–dipole interaction and the collective decay process. The focus is to analyse the photon pairs simultaneously radiated by the system in the far-field domain. The analysis has been done for various interatomic separations. It is seen that the interference between the photon emitters can lead to strong emission in certain directions. An intuitive understanding of the interesting directions for strong photon bunching is given. It is found that a reduction in the intensity of radiation leads to superradiance along specific directions.

Stimulated Emission of Superradiant Atoms in Waveguide Quantum Electrodynamics

We investigate the stimulated emission of superradiant atoms coupled to a waveguide induced by a coherent-state photon pulse. We provide an analytical result when a short $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulse is incident, which shows that the atoms emit photons coherently into the output pulse, which remains a coherent state in the short pulse limit. An incident pulse is amplified in a phase-preserving manner, where noise is added almost entirely in the phase direction in phase space. This property improves the ratio of the intensity signal to noise after the amplification for sufficiently short pulses. This is a unique feature different from general phase-preserving linear amplifiers, where the signal-to-noise ratio deteriorates in the amplification process. We also discuss the dependence of the photon-emission probability on pulse parameters, such as the pulse area and the duration.

Nonlinear Compton scattering in time-dependent electric fields beyond the locally constant crossed field approximation

Locally constant crossed field approximation (LCFA) is a powerful tool for theoretical and numerical studies of various strong field quantum electrodynamical effects. We explore this approximation in detail for photon emission by a spinless particle in a strong time-dependent electric field. This kind of electromagnetic fields is of particular interest, because, in contrast to the comprehensively studied case of a plane wave, they are not crossed. We develop an approach for calculating photon emission probability in a generic time-dependent electric field, establish the range of applicability of LCFA, and calculate the corrections to it.

Motion induced excitation and electromagnetic radiation from an atom facing a thin mirror

We evaluate the probability of (de-)excitation and photon emission from a neutral, moving, non-relativistic atom, coupled to the quantum electromagnetic field and in the presence of a thin, perfectly conducting plane ("mirror"). These results extend, to a more realistic model, the ones we had presented for a scalar model, where the would-be electron was described by a scalar variable, coupled to an (also scalar) vacuum field. The latter was subjected to either Dirichlet or Neumann conditions on a plane. In our evaluation of the spontaneous emission rate produced when the accelerated atom is initially in an excited state, we pay attention to its comparison with the somewhat opposite situation, namely, an atom at rest facing a moving mirror.

Enhancement of quantum excitation transport by photonic nonreciprocity

Enhanced interaction between two two-level emitters (e.g., atoms) by nonreciprocal photonic media can be of benefit to broad areas, from quantum information science to biological detection. Here we provide a detailed analysis on why nonreciprocal photon-mediated interaction enhances interatomic excitation transport efficiency. We investigate a system consisting of two two-level emitters embedded in a generic photonic environment. By comparing symmetric and asymmetric photon exchange, we analytically show that breaking electromagnetic reciprocity makes it possible for the cooperative decay rate to exceed the spontaneous decay rate, even in a translation-invariant homogeneous system. This means that the excitation of an emitter must decay mostly into the other emitter rather than leaking and dissipating into the reservoir photonic modes. We also provide an example where a chain of two-level emitters dominantly interacts via the reciprocal modes of a plasmonic waveguide. We then show that breaking reciprocity in such a system via driving a dc current through the plasmonic material can drastically increase the probability of photon emission from one emitter to another, leading to an order-of-magnitude enhancement in quantum energy-transport efficiency.

The optical theorem in action: radiation of an electron in a Lorentz-violating vacuum

According to the optical theorem, the imaginary part of the one-loop radiative shift of the electron energy in an external field (IP1L) determines the total probability of photon emission by the electron. We calculate IP1L and then the probability and power of radiation of an electron in a constant background tensor field, which simulates the violation of Lorentz invariance in the framework of the Standard Model Extension. Using current experimental constraints on the background field strength, we show that the considered radiation effect can manifest itself under astrophysical conditions at ultrahigh electron energy.

Commercially available chromophores as low-cost efficient electron injection layers for organic light emitting diodes

Further advancements in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) using commercially available, low-cost materials is of high significance. Here, we report the application of commercially available chromophores as room temperature processed electron injection layers (EILs) in the conventional OLED architecture. The facile solution-processing of these chromophores, namely, 4‐dimethylamino‐4′‐nitrostilbene (DANS) and 1‐(4‐(dimethylamino)phenyl)‐6‐phenyl‐1,3,5‐hexatriene, along with the presence of nitrogen atom in their structure, which is expected to induce the formation of a negative interfacial dipole at the cathode interface, have motivated their use as EILs. Improved performance of the OLEDs using these chromophores was obtained. Especially, the OLED using DANS exhibited the highest luminous efficiency, power efficiency and external quantum efficiency values of 8.7 cd A−1, 6.75 lm W−1 and 2.9%, respectively, which represented a significant improvement compared to the reference device without the EIL (1.2 cd A−1, 0.7 lm W−1 and 0.4%, respectively). A variety of experimental and simulated results demonstrated that this enhancement is attributed to increased electron injection leading to balanced electron and hole currents, especially in the DANS embedding device. Additionally, we calculated significant broadening of the emission zone profile across the entire organic emitter in the devices using the chromophores, thus increasing the probability of radiative recombination and photon emission.

Resonant Excitation and Purcell Enhancement of Coherent Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers Coupled to a Fabry-Perot Microcavity

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond has been established as a prime building block for quantum networks. However, scaling beyond a few network nodes is currently limited by low spin-photon entanglement rates, resulting from the NV center's low probability of coherent photon emission and collection. Integration into a cavity can boost both values via the Purcell effect, but poor optical coherence of near-surface NV centers has so far prevented their resonant optical control, as would be required for entanglement generation. Here, we overcome this challenge, and demonstrate resonant addressing of individual, fiber-cavity-coupled NV centers, and collection of their Purcell-enhanced coherent photon emission. Utilizing off-resonant and resonant addressing protocols, we extract Purcell factors of up to 4, consistent with a detailed theoretical model. This model predicts that the probability of coherent photon detection per optical excitation can be increased to 10% for realistic parameters - an improvement over state-of-the art solid immersion lens collection systems by two orders of magnitude. The resonant operation of an improved optical interface for single coherent quantum emitters in a closed-cycle cryogenic system at T $\sim$ 4 K is an important result towards extensive quantum networks with long coherence.

КООРДИНАТНОЕ ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНИЕ РАБИЕВСКИХ ОСЦИЛЛЯЦИЙ ИСКУССТВЕННОГО АТОМА В ОПТИЧЕСКОЙ ПОЛОСТИ

The possibility of the electron oscillations in a two-well potential is investigated in the article. The Hamiltonian of the system is calculated taking into account the formulas of the James-Cummings model. The unitary dynamics is carried out using a general solution of the Schrodinger equation. The conditions for the parameters of the problem under which the oscillation takes place are shown. These conditions for the exact formulation are discrete. However, it is valuable to find out at what parameters of the problem there occur approximate oscillations, at which an incomplete transition of a particle from one well to another is observed. In the standard manuals on the quantum theory of a single particle, the Hamiltonian was considered from the very beginning without photons, so it was assumed that complete oscillations always take place. This approximate consideration corresponds to reality only with a high potential between the wells. If the potential is low, the wells actually merge into one well, so that the spectrum and eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian become similar to the spectrum and eigenvalues of a one-dimensional potential – a radically different case. Such a discrepancy occurs due to ignoring the interaction of the electron with the electromagnetic field. If such an interaction is taken into account we get the dynamics described by the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian. At a low potential, the energy gap between the ground and excited energy states of the electron grows. Since the probability of photon emission is proportional to this value, the interaction with the field cannot be ignored.

Investigating the air kerma rate constant for 241Am through first principle calculations and simulation

The air kerma rate constant is important for estimating radiation dose and shielding calculations to ensure radiation exposure is as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA). Currently, there are significant deviations in this constant reported for 241Am by various institutions. Therefore, through first principle calculations and simulation, we investigate the air kerma rate constant for 241Am based on photon energies and emission probabilities reported in literature.

Quantum states of an electromagnetic field interacting with a classical current and their applications to radiation problems.

Synchrotron radiation was originally studied by classical methods using the Liénard-Wiechert potentials of electric currents. Subsequently, quantum corrections to the classical formulas were studied, considering the emission of photons arising from electronic transitions between spectral levels, described in terms of the Dirac equation. In this paper, an intermediate approach is considered, in which electric currents generating the radiation are considered classically while the quantum nature of the radiation is taken into account exactly. Such an approximate approach may be helpful in some cases; it allows one to study one-photon and multi-photon radiation without complicating calculations using corresponding solutions of the Dirac equation. Here, exact quantum states of an electromagnetic field interacting with classical currents are constructed and their properties studied. With their help, the probability of photon emission by classical currents is calculated and relatively simple formulas for one-photon and multi-photon radiation are obtained. Using the specific circular electric current, the corresponding synchrotron radiation is calculated. The relationship between the obtained results and those known before are discussed, for example with the Schott formula, with Schwinger calculations, with one-photon radiation of scalar particles due to transitions between Landau levels, and with some previous results of calculating two-photon synchrotron radiation.

Monitoring strong coupling in nonlocal plasmonics with electron spectroscopies

Plasmon-exciton polaritons provide exciting possibilities to control light-matter interactions at the nanoscale by enabling closer investigation of quantum optical effects and facilitating novel technologies based, for instance, on Bose-Einstein condensation and polaritonic lasing. Nevertheless, observing and visualising polaritons is challenging, and traditional optical microscopy techniques often lead to ambiguities regarding the emergence and strength of the plasmon-exciton coupling. Electron microscopy offers a more robust means to study and verify the nature of plexcitons, but is still hindered by instrument limitations and resolution. A simple theoretical description of electron beam-excited plexcitons is therefore vital to complement ongoing experimental efforts. Here we apply analytic solutions for the electron-loss and photon-emission probabilities to evaluate plasmon-exciton coupling studied either with the recently adopted technique of electron energy-loss spectroscopy, or with the so-far unexplored in this context cathodoluminescence spectroscopy. Foreseeing the necessity to account for quantum corrections in the plasmonic response, we extend these solutions within the framework of general nonlocal hydrodynamic descriptions. As a specific example we study core-shell spherical emitter-molecule hybrids, going beyond the standard local-response approximation through the hydrodynamic Drude model for screening and the generalised nonlocal optical response theory for nonlocal damping. We show that electron microscopies are extremely powerful in describing the interaction of emitters with the otherwise weakly excited by optical means higher-order plasmonic multipoles, a response that survives when quantum-informed models are considered.

On the Approximate Evaluation of Some Oscillatory Integrals

To determine the photon emission or absorption probability for a diatomic system in the context of the semiclassical approximation it is necessary to calculate the characteristic canonical oscillatory integral which has one or more saddle points. Integrals like that appear in a whole range of physical problems, e.g., the atom–atom and atom–surface scattering and various optical phenomena. A uniform approximation of the integral, based on the stationary phase method is proposed, where the integral with several saddle points is replaced by a sum of integrals each having only one or at most two real saddle points and is easily soluble. In this way we formally reduce the codimension in canonical integrals of “elementary catastrophes” with codimensions greater than 1. The validity of the proposed method was tested on examples of integrals with three saddle points (“cusp” catastrophe) and four saddle points (“swallow-tail” catastrophe).

Features of the Emission Spectrum during Channeling of Ultrarelativistic Leptons

The probability of photon emission by a channeled particle is calculated in the nondipole case. The emission of hard photons with energies comparable with the energy of the incident channeled particle is studied. The quasi-Bloch energy spectrum is calculated for an oriented fast charged particle entering a crystal at angles both smaller and larger than the Lindhard angle. The initial and final spectra of the channeled particle belong to different sets of the wavefunctions of the bands corresponding to different energies. The generation of photons by a quantum particle oriented with respect to the crystal and entering the crystal at angles both larger and smaller than the Lindhard angle are considered on the same basis. It is shown that the emission spectrum of hard photons consists of a set of distinct emission lines.

A Multichannel Time-Tagged Time-Resolved (TTTR) Model for Quantification of Oligomer Concentrations Based on Antibunching Effect.

Molecule/protein aggregation causes many devastating and incurable diseases in human bodies. For example, studies have revealed that protein oligomers formed at the early stage are toxic and may be mostly responsible for some diseases. In the fundamental research, differentiation of different protein oligomers and quantification of the concentrations are important and challenging. Here, we have developed a multichannel time-tagged time-resolved (TTTR) confocal fluorescence model based on antibunching effect to solve the problem. The key point of the model is that n-oligomers labeled with n-dyes cannot emit more than n photons at one time. By assuming that all labeling dyes behave perfectly as noninteractive individual dyes, the analytic relationship between photon-emission probability and oligomer concentrations has been derived. Simulations have been carried out to verify the model, in which differentiation and concentration quantification of up to tetraoligomers can be realized with a relative error <10% in an eight-channel TTTR confocal setup with eight single-photon detectors.

Implementing nonlinear Compton scattering beyond the local-constant-field approximation

In the calculation of probabilities of physical processes occurring in a background classical field, the local constant field approximation (LCFA) relies on the possibility of neglecting the space-time variation of the external field within the region of formation of the process. This approximation is widely employed in strong-field QED as it allows to evaluate probabilities of processes occurring in arbitrary electromagnetic fields starting from the corresponding quantities computed in a constant electromagnetic field. Here, we demonstrate in the case of nonlinear single Compton scattering that the LCFA is quantitatively and qualitatively insufficient for describing the low-energy part of the emitted photon probability. In addition, we provide a simple recipe to implement an improved expression of the photon emission probability beyond the LCFA in numerical codes, which are an essential tool to interpret present and upcoming experiments in strong-field QED.

New Possibilities of Positron-Emission Tomography

The reasons for the emergence of the angular distribution of photons generated as a result of annihilation of an electron and a positron in a positron-emission tomograph are investigated. It is shown that the angular distribution of the radiation intensity (i.e., the probability of photon emission at different angles) is a consequence of the Doppler effect in the center-of-mass reference system of the electron and the positron. In the reference frame attached to the electron, the angular distribution of the number of emitted photons does not exists but is replaced by the Doppler shift of the frequency of photons. The results obtained in this study make it possible to extend the potentialities of the positron-emission tomograph in the diagnostics of diseases and to obtain additional mechanical characteristics of human tissues, such as density and viscosity.