Theoretical Study of the Townes-Merritt Effect in Level Crossing Experiments

Abstract

The aim of this study is to develop the theory to describe the effect of an external nonresonant electromagnetic field on level crossing experiments. The primary motivation rests in the possibility of using these effects to obtain greater accuracy in high resolution spectroscopy. A high resolution spectroscopic technique using a nonresonant RF field in a level crossing experiment is proposed. Absorption sidebands, originally observed b Townes and Merritt (1947), are analyzed using a quantum electrodynamic (QED) approach. A model is developed using the Heisenberg operator formalism and the adiabatic approximation to describe the atomic dynamics. Results agree with a dressed states approach and the original experiment. The model is extended to a three level atom to describe level crossing and quantum beats for linear and quadratic Stark shifted atoms. Expressions are developed to define level crossing conditions and estimate critical experimental parameters. Keywords: Absorption sidebands; Nonlinear optics; Quantum optics.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1989
Accession Number
ADA213165

Entities

People

  • William R. White

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Absorption
  • Air Force
  • Detectors
  • Electric Fields
  • Electrodynamics
  • Electromagnetic Fields
  • Energy Levels
  • Equations Of Motion
  • Frequency
  • Ground State
  • High Resolution
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Quantum Electrodynamics
  • Spectroscopy
  • Stark Effect
  • Wave Equations
  • Wave Functions

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Plasma Physics / Magnetohydrodynamics
  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Quantum Computing