TY - JOUR

T1 - Atom state evolution and collapse in ultracold gases during light scattering into a cavity

AU - Mekhov, I. B.

AU - Ritsch, H.

N1 - Funding Information: The work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF (project nos. J3005 N16 and S40130). Copyright: Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2011/8

Y1 - 2011/8

N2 - We consider the light scattering from ultracold atoms trapped in an optical lattice inside a cavity. In such a system, both the light and atomic motion should be treated in a fully quantum mechanical way. The unitary evolution of the light-matter quantum state is shown to demonstrate the non-trivial phase dependence, quadratic in the atom number. This is essentially due to the dynamical self-consistent nature of the light modes assumed in our model. The collapse of the quantum state during the photocounting process is analyzed as well. It corresponds to the measurement-induced atom number squeezing. We show that, at the final stage of the state collapse, the shrinking of the width of the atom number distribution behaves exponentially in time. This is much faster than the square root time dependence, obtained for the initial stage of the state collapse. The exponentially fast squeezing appears due to the discrete nature of the atom number distribution.

AB - We consider the light scattering from ultracold atoms trapped in an optical lattice inside a cavity. In such a system, both the light and atomic motion should be treated in a fully quantum mechanical way. The unitary evolution of the light-matter quantum state is shown to demonstrate the non-trivial phase dependence, quadratic in the atom number. This is essentially due to the dynamical self-consistent nature of the light modes assumed in our model. The collapse of the quantum state during the photocounting process is analyzed as well. It corresponds to the measurement-induced atom number squeezing. We show that, at the final stage of the state collapse, the shrinking of the width of the atom number distribution behaves exponentially in time. This is much faster than the square root time dependence, obtained for the initial stage of the state collapse. The exponentially fast squeezing appears due to the discrete nature of the atom number distribution.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80051577879&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1134/S1054660X11150163

DO - 10.1134/S1054660X11150163

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:80051577879

VL - 21

SP - 1486

EP - 1490

JO - Laser Physics

JF - Laser Physics

SN - 1054-660X

IS - 8

ER -