Dissipation and Amplification of Jaynes-Cummings Superposition States
M.S. Kim · Journal of Modern Optics · 1993
There have recently been several proposals for generation of optical superposition states in the resonant atom-field interaction and more practically in microwave cavities. In the present paper we study the influence of the vacuum reservoir on properties of the near-superposition state of the cavity field which is described by the Jaynes-Cummings model at one-half of the revival time. Instead of introducing the cavity loss from the first instance of the atom-field interaction we consider the cavity loss only after the near-superposition state is produced and after the atom leaves the cavity. We solve the corresponding master equation with the initial condition being the Jaynes-Cummings field at one-half of the revival time. We find that under the influence of the vacuum reservoir the photon number distribution of the superposition state we study exhibits certain asymmetry around the mean photon induced by the decay process. We show that an analogous effect can be seen when the Jaynes-Cummings superposition state is amplified. For a basic test of our approach we study the dissipation and amplification of Fock states.