We investigate the effect of incoherent perturbations on atomic photoionization due to a femtosecond midinfrared laser pulse by solving the time-dependent stochastic Schrödinger equation. For a weak laser pulse which causes almost no ionization, an addition of a Gaussian white noise to the pulse leads to a significantly enhanced ionization probability. Tuning the noise level, a stochastic resonancelike curve is observed showing the existence of an optimum noise for a given laser pulse. Besides studying the sensitivity of the obtained enhancement curve on the pulse parameters, such as the pulse duration and peak amplitude, we suggest that experimentally realizable broadband chaotic light can also be used instead of the white noise to observe similar features. The underlying enhancement mechanism is analyzed in the frequency domain by computing a frequency-resolved atomic gain profile, as well as in the time domain by controlling the relative delay between the action of the laser pulse and noise.

We suggest that the concept of the point-spread function traditionally used to predict the blurred image pattern of various light sources embedded inside turbid media can be generalized under certain conditions to predict also the presence and location of spatially localized absorbing inhomogeneities based on shadow point-spread functions associated with each localized absorber in the medium. The combined image obtained from several absorbers can then be decomposed approximately into the arithmetic sums of these individual shadow point-spread functions with suitable weights that can be obtained from multiple-regression analysis. This technique permits the reconstruction of the location of absorbers.

We propose a scheme for realizing nonlocal nondegenerate optical parametric amplifier by means of genuine four-mode entanglement. The nondegenerate optical parametric amplifier is regarded as a unitary transformation from two input fields to two outputs. Two inputs and two outputs are located at the remote stations, respectively. Employing off-line four-mode entanglement, homodyne detection, classical communication, and local displacement, the nonlocal nondegenerate optical parametric amplifier can be achieved. This scheme can be implemented with a setup that is experimentally accessible at present.

A time-reversal mirror (TRM) is a plane apparatus that generates the time symmetric of a wave produced by an initial source. Here we look for the conditions to obtain subwavelength focusing when the initial source is in the near field of the TRM and the propagating medium is homogeneous and isotropic. Three variants of TRM are studied: TRM made of monopoles, dipoles, or both of them. The analysis is performed in terms of evanescent and propagative waves. We conclude that only the dipole-TRM leads to subwavelength focusing.

The physical origin of the negative thermal correction to the Casimir force between metals is clarified. For this purpose the asymptotic behavior of the thermal Casimir force is analyzed at large and small distances in the real frequency representation. Contributions from propagating and evanescent waves are considered separately. At large distances they cancel each other in substantial degree so that only the attractive Lifshitz limit survives. At smaller separations the repulsive evanescent contribution of $s$-polarization dominates in the case of two metals or a metal and a high-permittivity dielectric. Common origin and order of magnitude of the repulsion in these two cases demonstrate naturalness of the controversial large thermal correction between metals.

The electromagnetic field inside a cubic cavity filled with a linear magnetodielectric medium and in the presence of external charges is quantized by modeling the magnetodielectric medium with two independent quantum fields. The electric and magnetic polarization densities of the medium are defined in terms of the ladder operators of the medium and eigenmodes of the cavity. The Maxwell and constitutive equations of the medium together with the equation of motion of the charged particles have been obtained from the Heisenberg equations using a minimal coupling scheme. The spontaneous emission of a two-level atom embedded in a magnetodielectric medium is calculated in terms of the electric and magnetic susceptibilities of the medium and the Green function of the cubic cavity, as an application of the model.

An upper bound on simple quantum hypothesis testing in the asymmetric setting is shown using a useful inequality by Audenaert et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 160501 (2007)] which was originally invented for symmetric setting. Using this upper bound, we obtain the Hoeffding bound, which is identical with the classical counterpart if the hypotheses, composed of two density operators, are mutually commutative. Its attainability has been a long-standing open problem. Further, using this bound, we obtain a better exponential upper bound of the average error probability of classical-quantum channel coding.

We set up recursion relations for the partition function and the ground-state occupancy for a fixed number of noninteracting bosons confined in a square box potential and determine the temperature dependence of the specific heat and the particle number in the ground state. A proper semiclassical treatment is set up which yields the correct small-$T$ behavior in contrast to an earlier theory in Feynman’s textbook on statistical mechanics, in which the special role of the ground state was ignored. The results are compared with an exact quantum-mechanical treatment. Furthermore, we derive the finite-size effect of the system.

We study the coherent flow of interacting Bose-condensed atoms in mesoscopic waveguide geometries. Analytical and numerical methods, based on the mean-field description of the condensate, are developed to study both stationary as well as time-dependent propagation processes. We apply these methods to the propagation of a condensate through an atomic quantum dot in a waveguide, discuss the nonlinear transmission spectrum and show that resonant transport is generally suppressed due to an interaction-induced bistability phenomenon. Finally, we establish a link between the nonlinear features of the transmission spectrum and the self-consistent quasibound states of the quantum dot.

A theory is developed of monochromatic wave field amplification in a waveguide array based on expansion of the wave field in terms of guided array modes. The equations for the expansion coefficients include cross-modal gain, which completely changes the behavior of the amplified wave field. Analysis of the two-mode amplification reveals unusual features in its characteristics. Instead of unlimited growth of both modes for incoherent fields, one of the modes grows with no limit and suppresses the lower-power mode. Effects associated with the cross-modal gain are illustrated analytically on a system of two thin parallel planar waveguides. Conditions are found where the mode with lower gain can become the dominant one at the output of the amplifier.

We used nonequilibrium many-body Green techniques for the time varying resonant phenomena in few-body systems. By relating the transition energy shift and width to the self-energy and by applying the functional variational techniques to the transition energy shift and width, the corresponding initial state resonant wave functions are derived. Then we obtained time-dependent decaying state wave functions, evolving from these initial states by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for the decaying system numerically. Finally, we observed the plausible time decaying behaviors of our model as predicted by real few-body systems.

We have studied the velocity distribution of chromium atoms released from a solid neon matrix at cryogenic temperatures via Doppler spectroscopy. The Ne matrix is grown by directing a small flux of gas onto a cold substrate, while Cr atoms are simultaneously implanted by laser ablation, with the resultant plume directed toward the growing matrix. The atoms are then released by a heat pulse. We have observed neutral Cr atoms at temperatures around $13\mathrm{K}$ with densities close to ${10}^{12}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$. The released atoms have a large initial drift velocity, explained by simple kinetic theory arguments, due to the light species’ drag force. The scheme could be adapted to produce cryogenic beams of atoms, molecules, and possibly ions, for collisional studies and spectroscopy. However, our main motivation was the construction of a hydrogen trap, and here we discuss the prospects and problems of using this technique for this purpose.

We discuss limitations in precision measurements of a weak classical force coupled to quantum mechanical systems, the so-called standard quantum limit (SQL). Among the several contexts exploiting the measurement of classical signals, gravitational wave (GW) detection is of paramount importance. In this framework, we analyze the quantum limited sensitivity of a free test mass, a quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator, two harmonic oscillators with equal masses and different resonance frequencies, and finally two mechanical oscillators with different masses and resonating at the same frequency. The sensitivity analysis of the latter two cases illustrates the potentialities of back-action reduction and classical impedance matching schemes, respectively. By examining coupled quantum oscillators as detectors of classical signals, we found a viable path to approach the SQL for planned or operating GW detectors, such as DUAL and AURIGA.

We propose a versatile experimental probe for cold atomic gases analogous to the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in condensed matter. This probe uses the coherent coupling of a single particle to the system. Depending on the measurement sequence, our probe allows us to obtain either the local density and spatial density correlations, with a resolution on the nanometer scale, or the single particle correlation function in real time. We discuss applications of this scheme to the various possible phases for a two dimensional Hubbard system of fermions in an optical lattice.

We study spin-polarized states and their stability in the antiferromagnetic phase of spinor $\left(F=1\right)$ quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates. Using analytical approximations and numerical methods, we find various types of polarized states, including patterns of the Thomas-Fermi type, structures featuring a pulse in one component inducing a hole in the other components, states with holes in all three components, and domain walls (DWs). The stability analysis based on the Bogoliubov–de Gennes equations reveals intervals of weak oscillatory instability in families of these states, except for the DWs, which are always stable. The development of the instabilities is examined by means of direct simulations.

An optical pumping scheme is presented that uses incoherent Raman transitions to prepare a trapped cesium atom in a specific Zeeman state within the $6S_{1/2}$, $F=3$ hyperfine manifold. An important advantage of this scheme over existing optical pumping schemes is that the atom can be prepared in any of the $F=3$ Zeeman states. We describe an experimental implementation of the scheme and show that a fraction $0.57\pm 0.02$ of the total population can be prepared in the desired state, with the remaining population distributed fairly uniformly among the six other states. We demonstrate the scheme in the context of cavity quantum electrodynamics, but the technique is equally applicable to a wide variety of atomic systems with hyperfine ground-state structure.

Two contrasting physical viewpoints and calculational approaches are adopted within the framework of molecular quantum electrodynamics for the evaluation of the static contribution to the change in mutual interaction energy between a pair of electric dipole polarizable molecules in an intense radiation field. This term arises when a real photon is scattered by the same molecular center with coupling between the two bodies occurring via exchange of a single virtual photon. In one method it is found that utilization of an effective three-photon interaction operator enables the energy shift to be obtained using second order perturbation theory with summation over only four time-ordered diagrams, each of which contain collapsed interaction vertices. The result is then shown to be obtained even more easily in a second approach that involves calculating the expectation values for both molecules in the ground electronic state and the field containing $N$ photons of mode $(\vec{k},\lambda )$ of the electric dipole moments induced at each molecule by the incident field, which are coupled to the resonant dipole-dipole interaction tensor. The static contribution in question is shown to arise from the interaction of a permanent electric dipole moment in one species with the first hyperpolarizability of the other. Both methods are compared and contrasted with a previous computation in which contributions to the energy shift arising from 48 time-ordered diagrams were summed using fourth order perturbation theory.

We investigate the ground state of the one-dimensional fermionic system enclosed in a hard-wall trap with attractive contact $p$-wave interactions. Based on the Bethe ansatz method, the explicit wave function is derived by numerically solving the Bethe ansatz equations for the full physical regimes $(-\infty \le c_F\le 0)$. With the exact wave function some quantities which are important in many-body physics are obtained, including the one-body density matrix and the momentum distribution of the ground state for finite system. It is shown that the shell structure of the density profiles disappears with the increase of the interaction and in the fermionic Tonks-Girardeau limit the density distribution shows the same behavior as that of an ideal Bose gas. However, the one-body density matrix and the momentum distribution exhibit completely different structures compared with their bosonic counterparts.

The Fresnel drag is viewed in the frame of nonlinear and/or nanostructured uniformly moving media. It is shown that in the case of intense light pulse interaction with an optically nonlinear medium the relativistic frequency chirp due to self-phase modulation is smaller than in the rest frame. In the case of light interaction with optically linear or nonlinear nanostructured medium the Fresnel drag depends on the effective refractive index of the medium. While the nanostructures are in a liquid matrix the drag can be controlled by the fill fraction of the inclusions. As an example the Fresnel drag for optically linear Bruggeman liquid is considered.