We measure the quantum speed of the state evolution of the field in a weakly-driven optical cavity QED system. To this end, the mode of the electromagnetic field is considered as a quantum system of interest with a preferential coupling to a tunable environment: the atoms. By controlling the environment, i.e., changing the number of atoms coupled to the optical cavity mode, an environment assisted speed-up is realized: the quantum speed of the state re-population in the optical cavity increases with the coupling strength between the optical cavity mode and this non-Markovian environment (the number of atoms).
@article{arxiv.1503.02591,
title = {Environment assisted speed-up of the field evolution in cavity QED},
author = {A. D. Cimmarusti and Z. Yan and B. D. Patterson and L. P. Corcos and L. A. Orozco and S. Deffner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.02591},
year = {2015}
}