arXiv subjects

Michael Fleischhauer

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Fleischhauer.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2007

Tunable negative refraction without absorption via electromagnetically induced chirality

We show that negative refraction with minimal absorption can be obtained by means of quantum interference effects similar to electromagnetically induced transparency. Coupling a magnetic dipole transition coherently with an electric dipole transition leads to electromagnetically induced chirality, which can provide negative refraction without requiring negative permeability, and also suppresses absorption. This technique allows negative refraction in the optical regime at densities where the magnetic susceptibility is still small and with refraction/absorption ratios that are orders of magnitude larger than those achievable previously. Furthermore, the value of the refractive index can be fine-tuned via external laser fields, which is essential for practical realization of sub-diffraction-limit imaging.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2006

Exact numerical simulations of a one-dimensional, trapped Bose gas

We analyze the ground-state and low-temperature properties of a one-dimensional Bose gas in a harmonic trapping potential using the numerical density matrix renormalization group. Calculations cover the whole range from the Bogoliubov limit of weak interactions to the Tonks-Girardeau limit. Local quantities such as density and local three-body correlations are calculated and shown to agree very well with analytic predictions within a local density approximation. The transition between temperature dominated to quantum dominated correlation is determined and it is shown that despite the presence of the harmonic trapping potential first-order correlations display over a large range the algebraic decay of a harmonic fluid with a Luttinger parameter determined by the density at the trap center.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2006

Comment on: "Electromagnetically induced left-handedness in optically excited four-level atomic media"

We discuss the recent proposal by Thommen and Mandel (Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 96}, 053601 (2006)) for electromagnetically induced negative refraction. Although the main conclusion of the paper -- the possibility to achieve negative refraction in an experimentally accessible atomic scheme -- remains valid, we show that the weak-excitation approximation used is invalid in the parameter regime studied and leads to quantitatively incorrect predictions. We show that negative refraction is always accompanied by absorption rather than by gain, and that the maximum value of the refraction-absorption ratio is of order unity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2005

Long-range interactions and entanglement of slow single-photon pulses

We show that very large nonlocal nonlinear interactions between pairs of colliding slow-light pulses can be realized in atomic vapors in the regime of electromagnetically induced transparency. These nonlinearities are mediated by strong, long-range dipole--dipole interactions between Rydberg states of the multi-level atoms in a ladder configuration. In contrast to previously studied schemes, this mechanism can yield a homogeneous conditional phase shift of pi even for weakly focused single-photon pulses, thereby allowing a deterministic realization of the photonic phase gate.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2004

Quantum Electrodynamics in Media with Negative Refraction

We consider the interaction of atoms with the quantized electromagnetic field in the presence of materials with negative index of refraction. Spontaneous emission of an atom embedded in a negative index material is discussed. It is shown furthermore that the possibility of a vanishing optical path length between two spatially separated points provided by these materials can lead to complete suppression of spontaneous emission of an atom in front of a perfect mirror even if the distance between atom and mirror is large compared to the transition wavelength. Two atoms put in the focal points of a lens formed by a parallel slab of ideal negative index material are shown to exhibit perfect sub- and superradiance. The maximum length scale in both cases is limited only by the propagation distance within the free-space radiative decay time. Limitations of the predicted effects arising from absorption, finite transversal extension and dispersion of the material are analyzed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2004

Decoherence in collective quantum memories for photons

The influence of decoherence on the fidelity of quantum memories for photonic qubits based on dark-state polaritons in atomic ensembles is discussed. It is shown that despite the large entanglement of the collective storage states corresponding to single photons or nonclassical states of light the sensitivity to decoherence does not scale with the number of atoms. This is due to the existence of equivalence classes of storage states corresponding to states with the same number of dark-state polariton excitations but arbitrary excitations in other polariton modes. Several decoherence processes are discussed in detail: single-atom spin-flips and dephasing, atom loss and motion of atoms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2004

Interaction of Impurity Atoms in Bose-Einstein-Condensates

The interaction of two spatially separated impurity atoms through phonon exchange in a Bose-Einstein condensate is studied within a Bogoliubov approach. The impurity atoms are held by deep and narrow trap potentials and experience level shifts which consist of a mean-field part and vacuum contributions from the Bogoliubov-phonons. In addition there is a conditional energy shift resulting from the exchange of phonons between the impurity atoms.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2004

Sub- and super-radiance over macroscopic distances using a perfect lens with negative refraction

Two atoms put at the foci of a perfect lens [J.B. Pendry, Phys. Ref. Lett. 85, 3966 (2000)] are shown to exhibit perfect sub- and super-radiance even over macroscopic distances limited only by the propagation length in the free-space decay time. If the left-handed material forming the perfect lens has nearly constant negative refraction and vanishing absorption over a spectral range larger than the natural linewidth, the imaginary part of the retarded Greens-function between the two focal points is identical to the one at the same spatial position and the atoms undergo a Markovian dynamics. Collective decay rates and level shifts are calculated from the Greens-function of the Veselago-Pendry lens and limitation as well as potential applications are discussed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Relation between discrete and continuous teleportation using linear elements

We discuss the relation between discrete and continuous linear teleportation, i.e. teleportation schemes that use only linear optical elements and photodetectors. For this the existing qubit protocols are generalized to qudits with a discrete and finite spectrum but with an arbitrary number of states or alternatively to continuous variables. Correspondingly a generalization of linear optical operations and detection is made. It is shown that linear teleportation is only possible in a probabilistic sense. A general expression for the success probability is derived which is shown to depend only on the dimensions of the input and ancilla Hilbert spaces. From this the known results $p=1/2$ and $p=1$ for the discrete and continuous cases can be recovered. We also discuss the probabilistic teleportation scheme of Knill, Laflamme and Milburn and argue that it does not make optimum use of resources.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Efficient photon counting and single-photon generation using resonant nonlinear optics

The behavior of an atomic double lambda system in the presence of a strong off-resonant classical field and a few-photon resonant quantum field is examined. It is shown that the system possesses properties that allow a single-photon state to be distilled from a multi-photon input wave packet. In addition, the system is also capable of functioning as an efficient photodetector discriminating between one- and two-photon wave packets with arbitrarily high efficiency.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Full quantum solutions to the resonant four-wave mixing of two single-photon wave packets

We analyze both analytically and numerically the resonant four-wave mixing of two co-propagating single-photon wave packets. We present analytic expressions for the two-photon wave function and show that soliton-type quantum solutions exist which display a shape-preserving oscillatory exchange of excitations between the modes. Potential applications including quantum information processing are discussed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Quantum theory of resonantly enhanced four-wave mixing: mean-field and exact numerical solutions

We present a full quantum analysis of resonant forward four-wave mixing based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). In particular, we study the regime of efficient nonlinear conversion with low-intensity fields that has been predicted from a semiclassical analysis. We derive an effective nonlinear interaction Hamiltonian in the adiabatic limit. In contrast to conventional nonlinear optics this Hamiltonian does not have a power expansion in the fields and the conversion length increases with the input power. We analyze the stationary wave-mixing process in the forward scattering configuration using an exact numerical analysis for up to $10^3$ input photons and compare the results with a mean-field approach. Due to quantum effects, complete conversion from the two pump fields into the signal and idler modes is achieved only asymptotically for large coherent pump intensities or for pump fields in few-photon Fock states. The signal and idler fields are perfectly quantum correlated which has potential applications in quantum communication schemes. We also discuss the implementation of a single-photon phase gate for continuous quantum computation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Two-photon linewidth of light "stopping" via electromagnetically induced transparency

We analyze the two-photon linewidth of the recently proposed adiabatic transfer technique for ``stopping'' of light using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We shown that a successful and reliable transfer of excitation from light to atoms and back can be achieved if the spectrum of the input probe pulse lies within the initial transparency window of EIT, and if the two-photon detuning $δ$ is less than the collective coupling strength (collective vacuum Rabi-frequency) $g\sqrt{N}$ divided by $\sqrt{γT}$, with $γ$ being the radiative decay rate, $N$ the effective number of atoms in the sample, and $T$ the pulse duration. Hence in an optically thick medium light ``storage'' and retrieval is possible with high fidelity even for systems with rather large two-photon detuning or inhomogeneous broadening.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Eliminating nonlinear phase mismatch in resonantly enhanced 4-wave mixing

Resonantly enhanced four wave mixing in double-Lambda systems is limited by ac-Stark induced nonlinear phase shifts. With counter-propagating pump fields the intensity-phase coupling has minimal impact on the dynamics, but it is of critical importance for co-propagation. The nonlinear phase terms lead to an increase of the conversion length linearly proportional to the inverse seed intensity, while without nonlinear phase-mismatch the scaling is only logarithmic. We here show that the ac-Stark contributions can be eliminated while retaining the four-wave mixing contribution by choosing a suitable five level system with appropriate detunings.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Entanglement generation by adiabatic navigation in the space of symmetric multi-particle states

We propose a technique for robust and efficient navigation in the Hilbert space of entangled symmetric states of a multiparticle system with externally controllable linear and nonlinear collective interactions. A linearly changing external field applied along the quantization axis creates a network of well separated level crossings in the energy diagram of the collective states. One or more transverse pulsed fields applied at the times of specific level crossings induce adiabatic passage between these states. By choosing the timing of the pulsed field appropriately, one can transfer an initial product state of all N spins into (i) any symmetric state with n spin excitations and (ii) the N-particle analog of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state. This technique, unlike techniques using pulses of specific area, does not require precise knowledge of the number of particles and is robust against variations in the interaction parameters. We discuss potential applications in two-component Bose condensates and ion-trap systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv1999

Spontaneous emission and level shifts in absorbing disordered dielectrics and dense atomic gases: A Green's function approach

Spontaneous emission and Lamb shift of atoms in absorbing dielectrics are discussed. A Green's-function approach is used based on the multipolar interaction Hamiltonian of a collection of atomic dipoles with the quantised radiation field. The rate of decay and level shifts are determined by the retarded Green's-function of the interacting electric displacement field, which is calculated from a Dyson equation describing multiple scattering. The positions of the atomic dipoles forming the dielectrics are assumed to be uncorrelated and a continuum approximation is used. The associated unphysical interactions between different atoms at the same location is eliminated by removing the point-interaction term from the free-space Green's-function (local field correction). For the case of an atom in a purely dispersive medium the spontaneous emission rate is altered by the well-known Lorentz local-field factor. In the presence of absorption a result different from previously suggested expressions is found and nearest-neighbour interactions are shown to be important.

quant-ph↗

arXiv1998

Optical pumping in dense atomic media: Limitations due to reabsorption of spontaneously emitted photons

Resonant optical pumping in dense atomic media is discussed, where the absorption length is less than the smallest characteristic dimension of the sample. It is shown that reabsorption and multiple scattering of spontaneous photons (radiation trapping) can substantially slow down the rate of optical pumping. A very slow relaxation out of the target state of the pump process is then sufficient to make optical pumping impossible. As model systems an inhomogeneously and a radiatively broadened 3-level system resonantly driven with a strong broad-band pump field are considered.

quant-ph↗

arXiv1998

Long-time dynamics of spontaneous parametric down-conversion and quantum limitations of conversion efficiency

We analyze the long-time quantum dynamics of degenerate parametric down-conversion from an initial sub-harmonic vacuum (spontaenous down-conversion). Standard linearization of the Heisenberg equations of motions fails in this case, since it is based on an expansion around an unstable classical solution and neglects pump depletion. Introducing a mean-field approximation we find a periodic exchange of energy between the pump and subharmonic mode goverened by an anharmonic pendulum equation. From this equation the optimum interaction time or crystal length for maximum conversion can be determined. A numerical integration of the 2-mode Schr"odinger equation using a dynamically optimized basis of displaced and squeezed number states verifies the characteristic times predicted by the mean-field approximation. In contrast to semiclassical and mean-field predictions it is found that quantum fluctuations of the pump mode lead to a substantial limitation of the efficiency of parametric down-conversion.

quant-ph↗