Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Nonlinear interaction of two photons with a one-dimensional atom: Spatiotemporal quantum coherence in the emitted field

Journal Article · · Physical Review. A
;  [1]; ;  [1]
  1. Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Kita-12 Nishi-6, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-0812, (Japan)
The nonlinear photon-photon interaction mediated by a single two-level atom is studied theoretically based on a one-dimensional model of the field-atom interaction. This model allows us to determine the effects of an atomic nonlinearity on the spatiotemporal coherence of a two-photon state. Specifically, the complete two-photon output wave function can be obtained for any two-photon input wave function. It is shown that the quantum interference between the components of the output state associated with different interaction processes causes bunching and antibunching in the two-photon statistics. This theory may be useful for various applications in photon manipulation, e.g., quantum information processing using photonic qubits, quantum nondemolition measurements, and the generation of entangled photons.
OSTI ID:
20639954
Journal Information:
Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 68; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English