English

Lenses as an Atom-Photon Interface: A Semiclassical Model

Quantum Physics 2011-08-11 v1 Atomic Physics

Abstract

Strong interaction between the light field and an atom is often achieved with cavities. Recent experiments have used a different configuration: a propagating light field is strongly focused using a system of lenses, the atom being supposed to sit at the focal position. In reality, this last condition holds only up to some approximation; in particular, at any finite temperature, the atom position fluctuates. We present a formalism that describes the focalized field and the atom sitting at an arbitrary position. As a first application, we show that thermal fluctuations do account for the extinction data reported in M. K. Tey et al., Nature Physics 4, 924 (2008).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1012.0630,
  title  = {Lenses as an Atom-Photon Interface: A Semiclassical Model},
  author = {Colin Teo and Valerio Scarani},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1012.0630},
  year   = {2011}
}
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