Multiatom effects in cavity QED with atomic beams
H. J. Carmichael, Barry Cyril Sanders · Physical Review A · 1999
The density dependence of the distribution of collective dipole coupling strengths realized by an atomic beam interacting with a ${\mathrm{TEM}}_{00}$ mode of an optical cavity is analyzed. An analytic expression for the characteristic function is derived, and low- and high-density limits are taken to define the one-atom and many-atom regimes of cavity QED, respectively. Intermediate densities $({N}_{\mathrm{eff}}\ensuremath{\sim}0.5)$ lie in a few-atom $(\ensuremath{\sim}4\ensuremath{-})$ regime.