Resonant atom-field interaction in large-size coupled-cavity arrays
- CNISM and Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita' degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Edificio 18, I-90128 Palermo (Italy)
We consider an array of coupled cavities with staggered intercavity couplings, where each cavity mode interacts with an atom. In contrast to large-size arrays with uniform hopping rates where the atomic dynamics is known to be frozen in the strong-hopping regime, we show that resonant atom-field dynamics with significant energy exchange can occur in the case of staggered hopping rates even in the thermodynamic limit. This effect arises from the joint emergence of an energy gap in the free photonic dispersion relation and a discrete frequency at the gap's center. The latter corresponds to a bound normal mode stemming solely from the finiteness of the array length. Depending on which cavity is excited, either the atomic dynamics is frozen or a Jaynes-Cummings-like energy exchange is triggered between the bound photonic mode and its atomic analog. As these phenomena are effective with any number of cavities, they are prone to be experimentally observed even in small-size arrays.
- OSTI ID:
- 21544689
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. A, Vol. 83, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.83.043802; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1050-2947
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Time evolution of the one-dimensional Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard Hamiltonian
Two-channel interaction models in cavity QED