Abstract

Recently the age-old issue of the interaction between light and matter has

received wide attention in new vigour because it enables us to address diverse

phenomena ranging from the coherent manipulation of the atoms in vicinity

to absolute zero to much touted experimental implementation of the quan-

tum computers and quantum information theory. The development of intense,

narrow band and tunable laser sources opens a new window to the laser spec-

troscopy which may eventually pave the way of 'New Physics^ in this century.

The actual number of the quantum mechanical states involved in the interac-

tion between the light and an atom is of much importance since many coherent

effects are associated with the level structure of the atom. A two-level system

interacting with the radiation field unarguably provides a simplest form of the

model to describe the interaction of radiation with matter.

When a two-level atom interacts with the external classical electromagnetic

field, the population of upper and lower states oscillate sinusoidally in opposite

phase at the Rabi frequency. In absence of the external field, this oscillation,

commonly known as the Rabi oscillation, ceases and the atom remains popu-

lated to its initial level. The situation is quite different in case of quantized

electromagnetic field. Jaynes and Cummings studied the dynamics of two-level

atom interacting with the quantized field mode in an ideal lossless cavity. They

noted that if the initial field state is a pure Fock state, then, similar to the case
with classical field, the atomic response to the population oscillation exhibits

quantized Rabi oscillation. Most interesting part of their study is that, even for

zero cavity mode (i.e. n = 0), the periodic exchange of the population between

the two states of an atom persists showing that a spontaneous emission followed

by reabsorption of the photon. This oscillation, known as the vacuum Rabi os-

cillation, is a feature which is purely stimulated due to the vacuum fluctuation

and does not have any classical analogue. Later it is found that if the initial

field state is a coherent state, then the atomic population exhibits the phenom-

enon of collapse and revival effect. Whether the atom is initially populated in

the lower or upper level, the patten of the collapse and revival of two levels

remains similar. The symmetric pattern of this Rabi oscillation of two-level

system is also observed by taking the interacting field as cla^ssical field. Putting

in other way, a symmetry is observed in the Rabi oscillation of the two levels of

the atom interacting either with the classical or with the quantized field. It is

therefore natural to ask: does this symmetry of the Rabi oscillation is preserved

for a multi-level system i.e. for the system having number of levels more than

twol To search answer of this question, we have studied the Rabi oscillations

of all the three-level configurations, namely, three-level cascade, lambda and

vee systems interacting with classical and quantized field modes respectively.

The Exact solutions of all the three-level systems are obtained by introduc-

ing a novel Euler matrix method. We have also obtained the exact solution

of the equidistant four-level system by introducing a generalized Euler matrix

formalism which is intimately connected with the two-qubit system of quantum

In literature, the Hamiltonians of different configurations of the three-level

system are generally constructed by taking different allowed transitions of its

various levels into consideration. The connection between the SU{3) symmetry

and the three-level system was investigated in recent past. However, inspite of

several progress, a general formalism as well as the ab initio solutions of all three

configurations with different initial conditions, in the very spirit of the Jaynes-

Cummings Model, are yet to be developed. One of the primary objectives of the

present study is to scrutinize the relations of various three-level configurations

and SU{3) symmetry group. Our study reveals that the model Hamiltonians

of all three three-level systems can be expressed in terms of the shift operators

of the GellMann matrices and we have three distinct Hamiltonians for different

configurations with well-defined level structures, namely, lower level as level-

1, middle level as level-2 and upper level as level-3 respectively. Our scheme

differs from the existing model which advocates the level-2 as always be the

intermediary level and it becomes the upper, lower and middle level to generate

the lambda, vee and cascade configurations respectively. Then we solve all

three configurations by taking the interacting field modes to be either classical

or quantized fields and compare the Rabi oscillations in each cases.

To start with we first analyze the equidistant cascade three-level system

interacting with single mode classical and quantized field at resonance. For the

classical field, the Rabi oscillation of the upper, middle and lower levels are

calculated for three distinct initial conditions, viz., i) when the atom is initially

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populated in the lower level (Case-I), ii) when the atom is initially populated

in the middle level (Case-II) and iii) when the atom is initially populated in

the upper level (Case-Ill) respectively. The numerical plots of this oscillation

shows that when the atom is initially populated in the lower or upper level, the

probabilities of Case-I and Case-Ill are similar except having a phase difference

between that of the upper and lower levels. On the other hand, when the atom

is initially populated in the middle level, the Rabi oscillation of the upper and

lower levels always remain same.

For initial condition of the quantized field, we consider the time evolution of

the probabilities in the following two different situations,

a)When the field is in a number state:

For the cascade Jaynes-Cummings model (i.e. fully quantized version of the

equidistant cascade three-level system), the probabilities of the upper, middle

and lower levels are also calculated for the aforesaid three distinct initial con-

ditions with given photon number. For Case-I i.e. when the atom is initially in

the lower level, the pattern of the Rabi oscillation for the quantized field is not

similar to Case-Ill i.e. when the atom is initially in the upper level. Further-

more, unlike the semiclassical case, for quantized model with the atom being

initially in the middle level, the population oscillation of the upper and lower

levels are not equal. Finally we note that for large value of n (photon number),

the probabilities of the three levels of the equidistant cascade system for the

quantized model are identical to those of the semiclassical model indicating the

validity of the Bohr correspondence principle.

IV
b) When the field is in a coherent state:

We consider that the atom is interacting with the quantized field mode which is

in a coherent state. We study the collapse and revival of the Rabi oscillation by

plotting the coherently averaged probabilities of three levels for different initial

conditions. We further note that, if the atom is initially populated either in

the lower (Case-I) or in the upper level (Case-Ill), it exhibits similar pattern of

collapse and revival, which is difl:erent from the case if it is initially populated in

the middle level. The reproduction of this result analogous to the semiclassical

model supports the established fact that the coherent state with large average

photon number n is very close to the classical field.

We then proceed to consider the exact solution of the lambda and vee-type

three-level system interacting with bi-chromatic classical and quantized field.

At zero detuning, we compare the Rabi oscillations of the semiclassical and

quantized lambda and vee systems respectively. The probabilities of the level-1,

level-2 and level-3 for the semiclassical lambda and vee models are calculated

when the system is initially at level-1 (Case-I), level-2 (Case-II) and level-3

(Case-Ill) respectively and the corresponding time evolution plots of the prob-

abilities are compared. The comparison of the plots shows that the pattern of

the probability oscillation of the lambda system initially being populated in the

level-1 (level-3) is similar to that of the vee system initially being populated

in the level-3 (level-1). More particularly we note that the oscillation of the

level-2 remains same for both lambda and vee systems, while the oscillation of

the level-3 (level-1) of the lambda system initially populated in the level-1 is
identical to that of the level-1 (level-3) of the vee system initially populated

in the level-3. Furthermore, for lambda and vee systems being initially pop-

ulated in the level-2, the Rabi oscillation of the level-2 of both systems also

remains similar except those of the level-3 and ievel-1 are interchanged. From

the behaviour of the probability curves we can come to the conclusion that the

lambda and vee configurations are essentially identical to each other and we

can obtain one configuration from another simply by the inversion followed by

the interchange of probabilities.

For the quantized field, we first consider the Rabi oscillation of the three

states of lambda and vee systems taking the field in a number state represen-

tation. In the number state representation, the Rabi oscillation shows that

the symmetry observed between the lambda system initially populated in the

level-1 (level-3) and the vee system initially populated in the leveI-3 (level-1) in

the semiclassical model no longer exists for the lambda and vee systems with

the quantized field modes. Furthermore, we note that when both are initially

populated in the level-2, the pattern of Rabi oscillation of the lambda system

is completely diff'erent from that of the vee system. In a word, for the quan-

tized field, contrast to the semiclassical case, the symmetry in the pattern of

the Rabi oscillation in all cases is completely lost irrespective of the fact that

whether the systems initially stay either in the level-1 or level-2 or level-3. In

other words, the invertibility between the lambda and vee models exhibited for

the classical field disappears as the direct consequence of the quantization of

the cavity modes.

VI
 Finally we consider the lambda and vee models interacting with the bi-

chromatic quantized fields which are in the coherent state. The coherently-

averaged probabilities of the level-3, level-2 and level-1 are calculated and the

corresponding plots with large average photon number are compared when the

system is initially in the level-1, level-2 and level-3 respectively and the collapse

and revival of the Rabi oscillation is studied. We note that in all cases, the

collapse and revival of the level-2 of both the systems are identical to each

other. Furthermore, we note that the collapse and revival for lambda system

initially in the level-3 (level-1) is similar to that of the vee system if it is initially

in the level-1 (level-3). On the other hand, if the system is initially in the level-

2, the collapse and revival of both the systems are identical to each other.

This is precisely the situation what we obtained in case of the semiclassical

model interacting with classical field. Thus the symmetry broken in case of the

quantized model is restored which indicates the proximity of the coherent state

to the classical field.

To establish the notion of the symmetry breaking effect in firm footing, we

have extended our study in case of the equidistant four-level system interacting

with the single-mode classical and quantized field. We construct the Hamil-

tonian using spin-| representation of SU(2) group and find the exact solution

of the model by introducing a 4 x 4 generalized Euler matrix scheme to find time

dependent probability amplitudes for different initial conditions. The pattern

of the Rabi oscillation shows that the probability of the system when it is ini-

tially in level-1 (level-2) is similar to that when it is initially populated in level-4

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(level-3) except the probabilities of level-1 and level-4 and also that of level-2

and level-3 are interchanged. Thus a regular pattern of the probability oscil-

lation reveals the symmetric behavior of Rabi oscillation for the semiclassical

four-level cascade system.

Similar to the previous cases, in case of the quantized field, we consider the

time evolution of the probabilities both for the field with number state repre-

sentation and also for the coherent state representation. For the number state

representation, the Rabi oscillation of the quantized model shows that for the

system being initially in level-1 (level-2), the oscillation pattern is completely

different from that when the system is initially populated in level-4 (leveI-3).

Thus the dynamical symmetry observed in the pattern of the Rabi oscillation

of the semiclassical model no longer exists for the quantized model. In a word,

for the quantized field, contrast to the semiclassical case, whether the system

initially stays in any one of the four levels, the symmetry of the Rabi oscillation

in all cases is completely lost. Finally we consider the model interacting with

the mono-chromatic quantized field which is in the coherent state. The study

of the collapse and revival of the four-level system shows that we recover sim-

ilar symmetric pattern as exhibited by the semiclassical equidistant four-level

system.

To summarize, we have proposed a new scheme of constructing the Hamil-

tonians of all three three-level configurations from the Gell-Mann matrices of

5f/(3) group. We have discussed the Rabi oscillation of the three- and four-level

systems interacting with the classical and quantized field modes. We point out

VIU
that the symmetry of the Rabi oscillation of the classical model disappears on

quantization due to the vacuum fluctuation of the cavity mode, which survives

even at n = 0. Such symmetry breaking of Rabi oscillation is not observed in

case of two-level Jaynes-Cumming model and hence it is essentially a nontrivial

feature of multi-level systems where the number of levels exceeds two. Exper-

imental observation of such effect is within the reach of the present-day high

precision laser spectroscopy.

The phenomenon of dissipation makes an ideal system more realistic. The

study of dissipative dynamics of a quantum system is generally addressed within

the framework of the system-reservoir formalism where the Markov approxima-

tion plays significant role. The key feature of this formalism is that the reser-

voir, which induces damping to the system, is always assumed to have immense

number of degrees of freedom. In consequence, the photon absorbed by the

reservoir from the system cannot bring any dynamical change on it because of

smallness of the energy difference between the system and the average energy

of each mode of the reservoir. We therefore ask, how the situation changes if we

consider a system of large energy content. We show that the dissipation of the

energy from such system brings a dynamical evolution of the reservoir which in

turn gives a feedback to the system.

We address this problem for a system of large energy content within the

framework of the system-reservoir formulation of dissipative dynamics and show

that it is intimately related with the standard notion of Newton's law of cooling.

Generally, the cooling of trapped atoms or molecules is achieved by reducing

IX
its translational motion by different coherent laser induced techniques. But

in addition to the translational motion, the rotational and vibrational motion

also contribute to the thermal energy of a molecule. Thus cooling of trapped

atoms or molecules requires the reduction of momentum associated with all the

degrees of freedom. Now, if we consider a system where the translational and

rotational motions are insignificant, then, the dissipation of the system is asso-

ciated with the vibrational degrees of freedom only and it can be treated within

the framework of standard dissipation theory of damped harmonic oscillator.

Our study shows that incorporation of the evolution of the reservoir within the

frame work of the system-reservoir formalism generalizes the master equation of

dissipation and the decay rate of the system acquires a term beyond the leading

order of the decay constant. In consequence, the thermalization becomes faster

due to the aforesaid feedback in question and the Newton's law of cooling is

modified. Recent advent of highly tunable lasers and their applications in lossy

cavity in particular, may provide an opportunity to verify existence of such

feedback experimentally.

Finally we conclude by summarizing the main results of the thesis and discuss

the outlook.