Quantized light lenses for atoms: The perfect thick lens
Bernd Rohwedder, Miguel Orszag · Physical Review A · 1996
A cylindrical light lens for atoms is studied in the limit of high detuning. The dynamics of atomic motion in a quantized electromagnetic field is shown to be separable into strictly classical and purely quantum-mechanical aspects when an ideal lens of arbitrary thickness is assumed. New insight is gained in the thick-lens regime, both in the classical and quantal domain. Different sources of aberration in nonideal lenses are studied. Their inclusion in a subsequent feasibility discussion for the observation of focal structures caused by field quantization sets experimental tolerances for an eventual measuring apparatus. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.