Related papers: Dissociating diatomic molecules in ultrafast and i…
Recent advances in laser technology have enabled tremendous progress in photochemistry, at the heart of which is the breaking and formation of chemical bonds. Such progress has been greatly facilitated by the development of accurate…
We investigate theoretically the dissociative ionization of a H2+ molecule using two ultrashort laser (pump-probe) pulses. The pump pulse prepares a dissociating nuclear wave packet on an ungerade surface of H2+. Next, an UV (or XUV) probe…
Matter-wave interferometry with molecules is intriguing both because it demonstrates a fundamental quantum phenomenon and because it opens avenues to quantum-enhanced measurements in physical chemistry. One great challenge in such…
The quantum optical response of high density ultracold atomic systems is critical to a wide range of fundamentally and technically important physical processes. These include quantum image storage, optically based quantum repeaters and…
These notes, intended to be self contained and tutorial, present a direct, macroscopic approach to quantizing light inside a linear-response dielectric material when both spectral dispersion and spatial nonuniformity are present, but the…
Due to their intuitiveness, flexibility and relative numerical efficiency, the macroscopic Maxwell-Bloch (MB) equations are a widely used semiclassical and semi-phenomenological model to describe optical propagation and coherent…
We are interested by the behaviour of a 1D single heavy particle, interacting with an environment made of very fast particles in a thermal state. Assuming that the interactions are instantaneous, we construct an appropriate quantum jump…
Depolarization of quantum fields is handled through a master equation of the Lindblad type. The specific feature of the proposed model is that it couples dispersively the field modes to a randomly distributed atomic reservoir, much in the…
In this work, we provide an overview of how well-established concepts in the fields of quantum chemistry and material sciences have to be adapted when the quantum nature of light becomes important in correlated matter-photon problems.…
The wave-particle duality of light has led to two different encodings for optical quantum information processing. Several approaches have emerged based either on particle-like discrete-variable states, e.g. finite-dimensional quantum…
Photon emission is the hallmark of light-matter interaction and the foundation of photonic quantum science, enabling advanced sources for quantum communication and computing. Although single-emitter radiation can be tailored by the photonic…
The development of attosecond technology has enabled the real-time observation of coherent electron motion in atoms, molecules and condensed phases. Experimentally, it is now possible to generate laser pulses of durations of only a few tens…
In this thesis, we investigate the quantum mechanical interaction of light with matter in the form of a gas of ultracold atoms: the atomic ensemble. We present a theoretical analysis of two problems, which involve the interaction of…
We first use the quantum method to replicate the well-known results of a single atom relaxing, whilst demonstrating the intuitive picture it provides for dissipative dynamics. By use of individual "quantum trajectories", the method allows…
We present a study of multiphoton dissociative ionization from molecules. By solving the time-dependent Schr\"{o}dinger equation for H$_2^+$ and projecting the solution onto double continuum scattering states, we observe the correlated…
We develop a theoretical framework for the dissipative propagation of quantized light in interacting optical media under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The theory allows us to determine the peculiar…
Open quantum systems are often described by a Lindblad master equation, which relies on a set of approximations, most importantly the rotating-wave approximation which is only valid for weak damping. In the Lindblad setting, dissipative…
We analyze theoretically the motional quantum dynamics of a levitated dielectric sphere interacting with the quantum electromagnetic field beyond the point-dipole approximation. To this end, we derive a Hamiltonian describing the…
Observing the motion of the nuclear wavepackets during a molecular reaction, in both space and time, is crucial for understanding and controlling the outcome of photoinduced chemical reactions. We have imaged the motion of a vibrational…
The Monte Carlo wave function method or the quantum trajectory/jump approach is a powerful tool to study dissipative dynamics governed by the Markovian master equation, in particular for high-dimensional systems and when it is difficult to…