Suppressing normal mode excitation by quantum interference in a cavity-atom system
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Published on: November 12, 2013
Jiepeng Zhang1, Gessler Hernandez, Yifu Zhu
1Department of Physics, Florida International University, Miami, Florida 33199, USA.
Abstract:
Collective coupling of multiple atoms with a cavity mode produces two normal modes that are separated in energy by Vacuum Rabi splitting. We show that the normal mode excitation of the cavity-atom system can be suppressed by coupling a control laser to the atomic system from free space. The control laser splits the normal mode of the cavity-atoms system and opens two excitation channels. The destructive quantum interference between the two channels renders the cavity-atoms system opaque to the light coupled to the cavity-atom system. We demonstrate suppression of the normal mode excitation by the destructive quantum interference in an experiment using cold Rb atoms confined in an optical cavity.
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