Download Paper

Radiation Pressure and Coherent States of Two-Level Atoms

C. Baxter

Physical Review A, 51, 3378 (1995)

Abstract

Two sets of coherent states of a two-level atom are constructed by the displacement-operator technique from the choices of the ground and excited states as the extremal state. Particular forms of both of these sets of coherent states are minimum-uncertainty states. Radiation-induced forces are determined for a two-level atom prepared in such coherent states. In general, these forces are affected by the presence of a second atom. For a minimum-uncertainty state, the force on a two-level atom is independent of the state of the field. The significance of the calculations is discussed in relation to the pure atomic state occurring in the midst of the "collapse region" of the atomic inversion in the Jaynes-Cummings model. The existence of such a pure state may provide a possible means of experimentally generating two-level atomic minimum-uncertainty states.