Laser linewidth effects in quantum state discrimination by EIT

Abstract

We discuss the use of electromagnetically modified absorption to achieve selective excitation in atoms: that is, the laser excitation of one transition while avoiding simultaneously exciting another transition whose frequency is the same as or close to that of the first. The selectivity which can be achieved in the presence of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is limited by the decoherence rate of the dark state. We present exact analytical expressions for this effect, and also physical models and approximate expressions which give useful insights into the phenomena. When the laser frequencies are near-resonant with the single-photon atomic transitions, EIT is essential for achieving discrimination. When the laser frequencies are far detuned, the `bright' two-photon Raman resonance is important for achieving selective excitation, while the `dark' resonance (EIT) need not be. The application to laser cooling of a trapped atom is also discussed.

15 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (6)

• The Quantum Jump Approach to Dissipative Dynamics in Quantum Optics
• Ground state laser cooling using electromagnetically induced transparency
• Projection Postulate and Atomic Quantum Zeno Effect
• Cooling atomic motion with quantum interference
• Simple experimental methods for trapped ion quantum processors
• Raman cooling and heating of two trapped Ba+ ions

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Coherent Quantum Optical Control with Subwavelength Resolution
• Ultra-high Resolution Spectroscopy with atomic or molecular Dark Resonances: Exact steady-state lineshapes and asymptotic profiles in the adiabatic pulsed regime
• Quantitative study of desctructive quantum interference effect on the linklin CPT
• Raman sideband cooling of a 138Ba+ ion using a Zeeman interval
• Characterization of a photon pair source based on a cold atomic ensemble using a cascade level scheme
• The effect of atomic response time in the theory of Doppler cooling of trapped ions