Spectral and statistical properties of strongly driven atoms coupled to frequency-dependent photon reservoirs

Abstract

Interesting new aspects of atomic behavior in the presence of strong driving fields appear when the driven atom resides not in free space, but in a region (such as an optical cavity) that displays a frequency-dependent photon-mode density. Under such conditions, it is found that a strong driving field can modify the spontaneous decay properties of an atom, and thereby give rise to interesting new features in the spectrum of strong-field resonance fluorescence. It is also found that a high level of dressed-state polarization can be maintained in a sample of resonantly or nonresonantly driven atoms by appropriate tuning of an enclosing cavity. Furthermore, for appropriate laser and cavity tunings, it is found that the atomic states become highly squeezed. In the course of analyzing these effects, a set of modified Bloch equations is derived that explicitly accounts for the finite response time associated with a frequency-dependent photon-mode density.