Single-photon pulse propagation in and into a medium of two-level atoms: Microscopic Fresnel Equations

Berman, P.R. and Ooi, Chong Heng Raymond (2011) Single-photon pulse propagation in and into a medium of two-level atoms: Microscopic Fresnel Equations. Physical Review A, 84 (6). 063851. ISSN 2469-9926, DOI https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.84.063851.

Full text not available from this repository.
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.84.063851

Abstract

The propagation of an off-resonant, single-photon pulse in and into a medium of two-level atoms is considered. When the pulse is launched from within the medium, there are two propagation speeds, neither of which is the normal group velocity. For densities as small as 10(11) atoms/cm(3) and detunings of order 10(11) s(-1), both propagation speeds approach one half the speed of light in vacuum. Moreover, rather remarkably, there are Rabi oscillations between the field and atomic excitation, even for this single-photon pulse. In contrast, for a pulse sent into the medium, the atom-field system remains adiabatically in a dressed state that propagates with the normal group velocity. In the limit that the index of refraction is approximately equal to unity, we obtain the Fresnel equations for the reflection and transmission coefficients based on this microscopic model. The transmission coefficient differs from the conventional result owing to the fact that we quantize the field in free space.

Item Type: Article
Funders: UNSPECIFIED
Additional Information: Department of Physics, Faculty of Science Building, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
Uncontrolled Keywords: Microscopic Fresnel Equations; off-resonant; Rabi oscillations; Fresnel equations
Subjects: Q Science > QC Physics
Divisions: Faculty of Science > Department of Physics
Depositing User: Miss Malisa Diana
Date Deposited: 08 Jul 2013 06:55
Last Modified: 09 Oct 2019 07:52
URI: http://eprints.um.edu.my/id/eprint/7956

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item