We study the transmission spectra of ultracold rubidium atoms coupled to a high-finesse optical cavity. Under weak probing with $\pi$-polarized light, the linear response of the system is that of a collective spin with multiple levels coupled to a single mode of the cavity. By varying the atom number, we change the collective coupling of the system. We observe the change in transmission spectra when going from a regime where the collective coupling is much smaller than the separation of the atomic levels to a regime where both are of comparable size. The observations are in good agreement with a reduced model we developed for our system.

A major obstacle to a practical, heralded source of single photons is the fundamental trade-off between high purity and high production rate. To overcome this difficulty, we propose applying sequential spectral and temporal filtering on the signal photons before they are detected for heralding. Based on a multimode theory that takes into account the effect of simultaneous multiple photon-pair emission, we find that these filters can be optimized to yield both high purity and a high production rate. While the optimization conditions vary depending on the underlying photon-pair spectral correlations, all correlation profiles can lead to similarly high performance levels when optimized filters are employed. This suggests that a better strategy for improving the performance of heralded single-photon sources is to adopt an appropriate measurement scheme for the signal photons, rather than tailoring the properties of the photon-pair generation medium.

Wiseman and co-workers [H. M. Wiseman, S. J. Jones, and A. C. Doherty, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 140402, (2007)] proposed a distinction among the nonlocality classes of Bell's nonlocality, Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox or steering, and entanglement based on whether or not an overseer trusts each party in a bipartite scenario where they are asked to demonstrate entanglement. Here we extend that concept to the multipartite case and derive inequalities that progressively test for those classes of nonlocality, with different thresholds for each level. This framework includes the three classes of nonlocality above in special cases and introduces a family of others.

We study the effect of laser phase noise on the generation of stationary entanglement between an intracavity optical mode and a mechanical resonator in a generic cavity optomechanical system. We show that one can realize robust stationary optomechanical entanglement even in the presence of non-negligible laser phase noise. We also show that the explicit form of the laser phase noise spectrum is relevant, and discuss its effect on both optomechanical entanglement and ground-state cooling of the mechanical resonator.

Given an unknown state of a qudit that has already been measured optimally, can one still extract any information about the original unknown state? Clearly, after a maximally informative measurement, the state of the system collapses into a postmeasurement state from which the same observer cannot obtain further information about the original state of the system. However, the system still encodes a significant amount of information about the original preparation for a second observer who is unaware of the actions of the first one. We study how a series of independent observers can obtain, or can scavenge, information about the unknown state of a system (quantified by the fidelity) when they sequentially measure it. We give closed-form expressions for the estimation fidelity when one or several qudits are available to carry information about the single-qudit state, and we study the classical limit when an arbitrarily large number of observers can obtain (nearly) complete information on the system. In addition to the case where all observers perform most informative measurements, we study the scenario where a finite number of observers estimates the state with equal fidelity, regardless of their position in the measurement sequence and the scenario where all observers use identical measurement apparatuses (up to a mutually unknown orientation) chosen so that a particular observer’s estimation fidelity is maximized.

We propose the necessary and sufficient condition for the presence of quantum entanglement in arbitrary symmetric pure states of two-level atomic systems. We introduce a parameter to quantify quantum entanglement in such systems. We express the inherent quantum fluctuations of a composite system of two-level atoms as a sum of the quantum fluctuations of the individual constituent atoms and their correlation terms. This helps to separate out and study solely the quantum correlations among the atoms and obtain the criterion for the presence of entanglement in such multiatomic systems.

In this paper, we discuss extremal extensions of entanglement witnesses based on Choi’s map. The constructions are based on a generalization of the Choi map, from which we construct entanglement witnesses. These extremal extensions are powerful in terms of their capacity to detect entanglement of positive under partial transpose (PPT) entangled states and lead to unearthing of entanglement of new PPT states. We also use the Cholesky-like decomposition to construct entangled states which are revealed by these extremal entanglement witnesses.

We demonstrate a technique, for carrying out precise measurements of atomic $g$-factor ratios, which relies on measurements of Larmor oscillations from coherences between magnetic sublevels in the ground states of ${}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}$ and ${}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ atoms confined in a dual isotope magneto-optical trap. We show that a measurement of $g_F^{\left(87\right)}/g_F^{\left(85\right)}$ with a resolution of 0.69 parts per ${10}^6$ is possible by recording the ratio of Larmor frequencies in the presence of a constant magnetic field. This represents the most precise single measurement of $g_F^{\left(87\right)}/g_F^{\left(85\right)}$ without correcting for systematic effects.

A clean and effective implementation of Doppler-width thermometry is described. Exploiting the relationship between line-center absorbance and integrated absorbance, the Doppler width of a molecular spectral line can be retrieved from a set of profiles resulting from different gas pressures. The method is validated by its application to numerically simulated spectra. Preliminary experiments, in water vapor samples, turn out to be successful, demonstrating Doppler-widths’ retrieval in the near-infrared with a precision of $8\times {10}^{-5}$, at the water triple point temperature. The direct link to the Boltzmann constant makes the proposed method very attractive for temperature metrology as a tool for the realization of a new thermodynamic temperature scale.

We present high-sensitivity and high-spectral-resolution line-shape and line-intensity measurements of self-broadened O${}_2$ $b{}^1{\Sigma }_g^{+}(v=1)\leftarrow X{}^3{\Sigma }_g^{-}(v=0)$ band transitions measured using the Pound-Drever-Hall-locked frequency-stabilized cavity ring-down spectroscopy technique. We give collisional broadening parameters and take into account the line-narrowing effects described by Dicke narrowing or the speed dependence of collisional broadening. We compare line intensities measured with relative uncertainties below 0.4% to data available in the HITRAN spectroscopic database.

We consider the density response of a trapped two-component Fermi gas. Combining the Bogoliubov-deGennes method with the random phase approximation allows the study of both collective and single-particle excitations. Calculating the density response across a wide range of interactions, we observe a crossover from a weakly interacting pair vibration mode to a strongly interacting Goldstone mode. The crossover is associated with a depressed collective mode frequency and an increased damping rate, in agreement with density response experiments performed in strongly interacting atomic gases.

A cloaking theory for a two-dimensional spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ fermion is proposed. It is shown that the spinor of the two-dimensional fermion can be cloaked perfectly through controlling the fermion’s energy and mass in a specific manner moving in an effective vector potential inside a cloaking shell. Different from the cloaking of three-dimensional fermions, the scaling function that determines the invisible region is uniquely determined by a nonlinear equation. It is also shown that the efficiency of the cloaking shell is unaltered under the Aharonov-Bohm effect.

A microscopic description of the zero-energy two-body ground state and many-body static properties of anisotropic homogeneous gases of bosonic dipoles in two dimensions at low densities is presented and discussed. By changing the polarization angle with respect to the plane, we study the impact of the anisotropy, present in the dipole-dipole interaction, on the energy per particle, comparing the results with mean-field predictions. We restrict the analysis to the regime where the interaction is always repulsive, although the strength of the repulsion depends on the orientation with respect to the polarization field. We present a series expansion of the solution of the zero-energy two-body problem, which allows us to find the scattering length of the interaction and to build a suitable Jastrow factor that we use as a trial wave function for both a variational and diffusion Monte Carlo simulation of the infinite system. We find that the anisotropy has an almost negligible impact on the ground-state properties of the many-body system in the universal regime where the scattering length governs the physics of the system. We also show that scaling in the gas parameter persists in the dipolar case up to values where other isotropic interactions with the same scattering length yield different predictions.

We show how to tune quantum noise in nonlinear systems by means of periodic spatial modulation. We prove that the introduction of an intracavity photonic crystal in a multimode optical parametric oscillator inhibits and enhances light quantum fluctuations. Furthermore, it leads to a significant noise reduction in field quadratures, robustness of squeezing in a wider angular range, and spatial entanglement. These results have potential benefits for quantum imaging, metrology, and quantum information applications and suggest a control mechanism of fluctuations by spatial modulation of interest also in other nonlinear systems.

By taking into account Kerr nonlinearity and negative second-order dispersion, we show by numerical investigations that in a passive optical nonlinear fiber ring resonator synchronously pumped with femtosecond pulses a temporal delay via a resonator length detuning or via third-order dispersion leads to limit cycle behavior, which is represented by an oscillatory evolution of the temporal as well as the spectral pulse shape. By introducing a two-dimensional iterative map, we show that limit cycles arise due to the mutual coupling of different spectral pulse components. The resulting system behavior can be used to introduce additional adjustable frequency components into frequency combs.

The spontaneous decay and quantum interference of a $\mathsf{V}$-type Zeeman atom placed near a $\mu$-negative metamaterial (MNG) slab are investigated. Based on the fact that MNG slab supports only TE-polarized surface-plasmon polariton (SPP) modes, the decay rate of the dipole component parallel to the interface would be much larger than that normal to the interface, because one can couple while another decouple to TE modes. Consequently, high-level anisotropic environment is created and the two dipoles can interfere with each other strongly by sharing such SPP modes even if they are orthogonal. In our work, we analyze the influence of the parameters of the MNG slab as well as the atomic location on the interference intensity in detail. In addition, the dissipation of the slab is considered, and the quantum interference is still excellent even with large absorption.

We wish to report a recent experimental observation of anticorrelation from first-order and second-order incoherent thermal fields in the joint photodetection of two independent photodetectors. In the view of classical theory, the nontrivial second-order correlation of thermal light is caused by the statistical correlation of intensity fluctuations, which can be observed only from first-order coherent thermal radiations. What is the physical cause of this observed anticorrelation, then?

We report an experimental demonstration of light polarization degree control during free propagation via manipulation of the coherent properties of the source. These experimental results corroborate the theory that polarization and coherence are both related to the same statistical properties of the electromagnetic field.

We show that a combination of linear absorption spectroscopy, hyper-Rayleigh scattering, and a theoretical analysis using sum rules to reduce the size of the parameter space leads to a prediction of the imaginary part of the second hyperpolarizability of the dye AF-455 that agrees with the experimental data gathered through two-photon absorption spectroscopy. Our procedure, which demands self-consistency between several measurement techniques and does not use adjustable parameters, provides a means for determining transition moments between the dominant excited states based strictly on experimental characterization. This is made possible by our new approach that uses sum rules and molecular symmetry to rigorously reduce the number of required physical quantities.

By combining a recent precise measurement of the ionization energy of ${}^{87}$Rb with previous measurements of the ground-state hyperfine structure and ionization energy of ${}^{85}$Rb, an accurate value for the ${}^{85}\text{Rb}{-}^{87}\text{Rb}$ isotope shift of the 5 ${}^2{S}_{1/2}$ ground state can be determined. In turn, comparison with additional spectroscopic data makes it possible to evaluate isotope shifts for the low-lying excited states, which are accurate in most cases to about 1 MHz. For the 5 ${}^2{S}_{1/2}$ and 5 ${}^2{P}_{3/2}$ states, the specific mass-shift contribution can be determined in addition to the total shift. This information is particularly useful for spectroscopic analysis of transitions to Rydberg states and for tests of atomic theory.