English

Observation of ground-state quantum beats in atomic spontaneous emission

Quantum Physics 2012-12-20 v1 Atomic Physics

Abstract

We report ground-state quantum beats in spontaneous emission from a continuously driven atomic ensemble. Beats are visible only in an intensity autocorrelation and evidence spontaneously generated coherence in radiative decay. Our measurement realizes a quantum eraser where a first photon detection prepares a superposition and a second erases the "which-path" information in the intermediate state.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1008.3920,
  title  = {Observation of ground-state quantum beats in atomic spontaneous emission},
  author = {D. G. Norris and L. A. Orozco and P. Barberis-Blostein and H. J. Carmichael},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1008.3920},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Letters