Is a multiple excitation of a single atom equivalent to a single excitation of an ensemble of atoms?
arXiv:physics/0405081 · doi:10.1209/epl/i2004-10441-9
Abstract
Recent technological advances have enabled to isolate, control and measure the properties of a single atom, leading to the possibility to perform statistics on the behavior of single quantum systems. These experiments have enabled to check a question which was out of reach previously: Is the statistics of a repeatedly excitation of an atom N times equivalent to a single excitation of an ensemble of N atoms? We present a new method to analyze quantum measurements which leads to the postulation that the answer is most probably no. We discuss the merits of the analysis and its conclusion.
3 pages, 3 figures