Electric field correlation measurements on the electromagnetic vacuum state

Abstract

Quantum mechanics ascribes to the ground state of the electromagnetic radiation zero-point electric field fluctuations that permeate empty space at all frequencies. No energy can be extracted from the ground state of a system and, therefore, these fluctuations cannot be measured directly with an intensity detector. The experimental proof of their existence came thus from more indirect evidence, such as the Lamb shift, the Casimir force between close conductors or spontaneous emission. A direct method to determine the spectral characteristics of vacuum field fluctuations has been missing so far. In this work, we perform a direct measurement of the field correlation on these fluctuations in the terahertz frequency range using electro-optic detection in a non-linear crystal placed in a cryogenic environment. We investigate their temporal and spatial coherence, which, at zero time delay and spatial distance, has a peak value of $6.2\cdot 10^{-2}{V}^2/m^2$, corresponding to a fluctuating vacuum field of 0.25 V/m. With this measurement, we determine the spectral composition of the ground state of electromagnetic radiation which lies within the bandwidth of electro-optic detection.

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• Cavity Optomechanics
• Observation of the Dynamical Casimir Effect in a Superconducting Circuit
• Quantum vacuum properties of the intersubband cavity polariton field
• Conductivity in organic semiconductors hybridized with the vacuum field
• Ultrastrong coupling of the cyclotron transition of a two-dimensional electron gas to a THz metamaterial
• Measurements of the Correlation Function of a Microwave Frequency Single Photon Source
• Terahertz light-matter interaction beyond unity coupling strength
• Cavity-enhanced transport of charge
• Dicke Superradiance in Solids
• Schemes for the observation of photon correlation functions in circuit QED with linear detectors
• Subcycle Quantum Electrodynamics
• Quantum back-action in measurements of zero-point mechanical oscillations
• Paraxial Theory of Direct Electro-Optic Sampling of the Quantum Vacuum
• Coherence and multimode correlations from vacuum fluctuations in a microwave superconducting cavity
• Sub-cycle measurement of intensity correlations in the Terahertz range
• Intensity autocorrelation measurements of quantum cascade laser frequency combs in the Terahertz range

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• Quantum Floquet engineering with an exactly solvable tight-binding chain in a cavity
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• Two-Dimensional Terahertz Spectroscopy of Condensed-Phase Molecular Systems
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• Subcycle squeezing of light from a time flow perspective
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• THz ultra-strong light-matter coupling up to 200K with continuously-graded parabolic quantum wells
• Casimir Self-Interaction Energy Density of Quantum Electrodynamic Fields
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• Electro-Optical Sampling of Single-Cycle THz Fields with Single-Photon Detectors
• Theoretical proposals to measure resonator-induced modifications of the electronic ground-state in doped quantum wells
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• Quenched entanglement harvesting
• Ultrafast pump-probe phase-randomized tomography
• Multimode Phonon-Polaritons in Lead-Halide Perovskites in the Ultrastrong Coupling Regime
• Subharmonic lock-in detection and its optimisation for femtosecond noise correlation spectroscopy
• Vacuum induced three-body delocalization in cavity quantum materials
• One-dimensional extended Hubbard model coupled with an optical cavity
• Angular Momentum-Dependent Spectral Shift in Chiral Vacuum Cavities
• Nonlocal Static and Dynamical Vacuum Field Correlations and Casimir-Polder Interactions
• Magnonic Superradiant Phase Transition
• Coherent anharmonicity transfer from matter to light in the THz regime
• Quantifying the amplitudes of ultrafast magnetization fluctuations in Sm${}_{0.7}$Er${}_{0.3}$FeO${}_3$ using femtosecond noise correlation spectroscopy
• Electro-optic sampling of the electric-field operator for ultrabroadband pulses of Gaussian quantum light
• Quantum noise in time-dependent media and cosmic expansion
• Subcycle tomography of quantum light
• Superradiant Quantum Phase Transition in Open Systems: System-Bath Interaction at the Critical Point
• Microscopic quantum description of surface plasmon polaritons: Revealing intrinsic ultrastrong light-matter coupling
• Field-tuning of ultrafast magnetization fluctuations in Sm${}_{0.7}$Er${}_{0.3}$FeO${}_3$
• Vacuum electromagnetic field correlations between two moving points