Optical Resonance And Two Level Atoms

Clear, comprehensive graduate-level account of basic principles involved in all quantum optical resonance phenomena, hailed in Contemporary Physics as "a valuable contribution to the literature of non-linear optics." 53 illustrations.

Nearly all of this book is taken from an article prepared for a volume of the Encyclopedia of Physics. This article, in turn, is partly based on Dr. Norbert Rosenzweig's translation of an older article on the same subject, written by one of us (H.A.B.) about 25 years ago for the Geiger-Scheel Handbuch der Physik. To the article written last year we have added some Addenda and Errata. These Addenda and Errata refer back to some of the 79 sections of the main text and contain some misprint corrections, additional references and some notes. The aim of this book is two-fold. First, to act as a reference work on calcu lations pertaining to hydrogen-like and helium-like atoms and their comparison with experiments. However, these calculations involve a vast array of approximation methods, mathematical tricks and physical pictures, which are also useful in the application of quantum mechanics to other fields. In many sections we have given more general discussions of the methods and physical ideas than is necessary for the study of the H- and He-atom alone. We hope that this book will thus at least partly fulfill its second aim, namely to be of some use to graduate students who wish to learn "applied quantum mechanics". A basic knowledge of the principles of quantum mechanics, such as given in the early chapters of Schiff's or Bohm's book, is presupposed.

From the reviews: "This is a book that should be found in any physics library. It is extremely useful for all graduate students, Ph.D. students and researchers interested in the quantum physics of light." Optics & Photonics News

In studying the radiation-matter interaction, one can take two different approaches. The first is typical of spectroscopy: one considers the interaction between radi ation and a single atom, i. e. , one studies those phenomena in which the presence of other atoms is irrelevant. The other attitude consists, in contrast, in studying those phenomena which arise just from the simultaneous presence of many atoms. In fact, all the atoms interact with the same electromagnetic field; under suitable conditions, this situation creates strong atom-atom correlations, which in turn give rise to a cooperative behavior of the system as a whole. Cooperative means that the overall behavior is quite different from the superposition of the effects arising from single atoms and is completely unpredictable if one neglects the coup ling between the atoms induced by their common electromagnetic field. This book contains five complete and up-to-date contributions on the theory and experiments of three coherence effects in radiation-matter interaction: resonance fluorescences, optical bistability, and superfluorescence. They have raised in creasing interest in recent years from both a fundamental and an applicative view point. Even if their phenomenology appears completely different, these effects be long in the same book because they are striking examples of open systems driven far from thermal equilibrium, as those considered in Haken's synergetics and in Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures. This aspect is discussed in the in troducting chapter, in which we outline the basic physics and the essential features which unify these three effects.

Quantum Optics gives a comprehensive coverage of developments in quantum optics over the past twenty years. In the early chapters the formalism of quantum optics is elucidated and the main techniques are introduced. These are applied in the later chapters to problems such as squeezed states of light, resonance fluorescence, laser theory, quantum theory of four-wave mixing, quantum non-demolition measurements, Bell's inequalities, and atom optics. Experimental results are used to illustrate the theory throughout. This yields the most comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of experiment and theory in quantum optics in any textbook.

This is the second volume of textbooks on atomic, molecular and optical physics, aiming at a comprehensive presentation of this highly productive branch of modern physics as an indispensable basis for many areas in physics and chemistry as well as in state of the art bio- and material-sciences. It primarily addresses advanced students (including PhD students), but in a number of selected subject areas the reader is lead up to the frontiers of present research. Thus even the active scientist is addressed. This volume 2 introduces lasers and quantum optics, while the main focus is on the structure of molecules and their spectroscopy, as well as on collision physics as the continuum counterpart to bound molecular states. The emphasis is always on the experiment and its interpretation, while the necessary theory is introduced from this perspective in a compact and occasionally somewhat heuristic manner, easy to follow even for beginners.

Principles of Laser Spectroscopy and Quantum Optics is an essential textbook for graduate students studying the interaction of optical fields with atoms. It also serves as an ideal reference text for researchers working in the fields of laser spectroscopy and quantum optics. The book provides a rigorous introduction to the prototypical problems of radiation fields interacting with two- and three-level atomic systems. It examines the interaction of radiation with both atomic vapors and condensed matter systems, the density matrix and the Bloch vector, and applications involving linear absorption and saturation spectroscopy. Other topics include hole burning, dark states, slow light, and coherent transient spectroscopy, as well as atom optics and atom interferometry. In the second half of the text, the authors consider applications in which the radiation field is quantized. Topics include spontaneous decay, optical pumping, sub-Doppler laser cooling, the Heisenberg equations of motion for atomic and field operators, and light scattering by atoms in both weak and strong external fields. The concluding chapter offers methods for creating entangled and spin-squeezed states of matter. Instructors can create a one-semester course based on this book by combining the introductory chapters with a selection of the more advanced material. A solutions manual is available to teachers. Rigorous introduction to the interaction of optical fields with atoms Applications include linear and nonlinear spectroscopy, dark states, and slow light Extensive chapter on atom optics and atom interferometry Conclusion explores entangled and spin-squeezed states of matter Solutions manual (available only to teachers)

The field of quantum optics has witnessed significant theoretical and experimental developments in recent years. This book provides an in-depth and wide-ranging introduction to the subject, emphasising throughout the basic principles and their applications. The book begins by developing the basic tools of quantum optics, and goes on to show the application of these tools in a variety of quantum optical systems, including lasing without inversion, squeezed states and atom optics. The final four chapters are devoted to a discussion of quantum optical tests of the foundations of quantum mechanics, and to particular aspects of measurement theory. Assuming only a background of standard quantum mechanics and electromagnetic theory, and containing many problems and references, this book will be invaluable to graduate students of quantum optics, as well as to researchers in this field.

With a new chapter on quantum entanglement and quantum information, as well as added discussions of the quantum beam splitter, electromagnetically induced transparency, slow light and the input-output formalism, this fourth edition of the brilliant work on quantum optics has been much updated. It still gives a self-contained and broad coverage of the basic elements necessary to understand and carry out research in laser physics and quantum optics, including a review of basic quantum mechanics and pedagogical introductions to system-reservoir interactions and to second quantization. The text reveals the close connection between many seemingly unrelated topics, such as probe absorption, four-wave mixing, optical instabilities, resonance fluorescence and squeezing.