Quantum Fluctuations of a Single Trapped Atom: Transient Rabi Oscillations and Magnetic Bistability
Quantum Physics
2009-11-06 v1
Abstract
Isolation of a single atomic particle and monitoring its resonance fluorescence is a powerful tool for studies of quantum effects in radiation-matter interaction. Here we present observations of quantum dynamics of an isolated neutral atom stored in a magneto-optical trap. By means of photon correlations in the atom's resonance fluorescence we demonstrate the well-known phenomenon of photon antibunching which corresponds to transient Rabi oscillations in the atom. Through polarization-sensitive photon correlations we show a novel example of resolved quantum fluctuations: spontaneous magnetic orientation of an atom. These effects can only be observed with a single atom.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0003105,
title = {Quantum Fluctuations of a Single Trapped Atom: Transient Rabi Oscillations and Magnetic Bistability},
author = {H. Schadwinkel and V. Gomer and U. Reiter and B. Ueberholz and D. Meschede},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0003105},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
LaTeX 2e, 14 pages, 7 Postscript figures