Atomic Molecular And Optical Physics

A radial magnetic field can induce a time invariance violating electric dipole moment (EDM) in quantum systems. The EDMs of the Tl, Cs, Xe and Hg atoms and the neutron that are produced by such a field are estimated. The contributions of such a field to the constants, χ of the T,P-odd interactions χ e N⋅s/s and χ N N⋅I/I are also estimated for the TlF, HgF and YbF molecules (where s ( I ) is the electron (nuclear) spin and N is the molecular axis). The best limit on the contact monopole field can be obtained from the measured value of the Tl EDM. The possibility of such a field being produced from polarization of the vacuum of electrically charged magnetic monopoles (dyons) by a Coulomb field is discussed, as well as the limit on these dyons. An alternative mechanism involves chromomagnetic and chromoelectric fields in QCD.

A method for the experimental reconstruction of the quantum state of motion for a single trapped ion is proposed. It is based on the measurement of the ground state population of the trap after a sudden change of the trapping potential. In particular, we show how the Q function and the quadrature distribution can be measured directly. In an example we demonstrate the principle and analyze the sensibility of the reconstruction process to experimental uncertainties as well as to finite grid limitations. Our method is not restricted to the Lamb-Dicke Limit and works in one or more dimensions.

The contact Darwin term is demonstrated to be of the same origin as the spin-orbit interaction. The (Zα ) 4 m 3 / M 2 correction to the Lamb shift, generated by the Darwin term, is found for an arbitrary nonvanishing spin of the nucleus, both half-integer and integer. There is also a contribution of the same nature to the nuclear quadrupole moment.

The nuclear spin--rotation interaction in the hyperfine structure of the hydrogen molecular ion is investigated. The interaction constants are determined and are found to differ in sign and magnitude compared to another theory, but they are in agreement with some values derived from experiment.

A two-parameter deformation of the Lie algebra u 2 is used, in conjunction with the rotor system and the oscillator system, to generate a model for rotation-vibration spectroscopy of molecules and nuclei.

We discuss a balanced homodyne detection scheme with imperfect detectors in the framework of the operational approach to quantum measurement. We show that a realistic homodyne measurement is described by a family of operational observables that depends on the experimental setup, rather than a single field quadrature operator. We find an explicit form of this family, which fully characterizes the experimental device and is independent of a specific state of the measured system. We also derive operational homodyne observables for the setup with a random phase, which has been recently applied in an ultrafast measurement of the photon statistics of a pulsed diode laser. The operational formulation directly gives the relation between the detected noise and the intrinsic quantum fluctuations of the measured field. We demonstrate this on two examples: the operational uncertainty relation for the field quadratures, and the homodyne detection of suppressed fluctuations in photon statistics.

In this work we study in detail the NeVII 2s3p-2s3s singlet line, which was also the object of a recent experiment. The standard perturbative impact theory predictions are tested against a fully non-perturbative semiclassical impact calculation, taking into account dipole and quadrupole interactions. Potentially very significant problems with the standard perturbative theory are encountered and discussed and a simple remedy is proposed.

We discuss the prospects for parity non-conservation experiments with highly charged heavy ions. Energy levels and parity mixing for heavy ions with two to five electrons are calculated. We investigate two-photon-transitions and the possibility to observe interference effects between weak-matrix elements and Stark matrix elements for periodic electric field configurations.

Theories which have been used to describe the quantized electromagnetic field interacting with a nonlinear dielectric medium are either phenomenological or derived by quantizing the macroscopic Maxwell equations. Here we take a different approach and derive a Hamiltonian describing interacting fields from one which contains both field and matter degrees of freedom. The medium is modelled as a collection of two-level atoms, and these interact with the electromagnetic field. The atoms are grouped into effective spins and the Holstein- Primakoff representation of the spin operators is used to expand them in one over the total spin. When the lowest-order term is combined with the free atomic and field Hamiltonians, a theory of noninteracting polaritons results. When higher-order terms are expressed in terms of polariton operators, standard nonlinear optical interactions emerge.

We show how to design different couplings between a single ion trapped in a harmonic potential and an environment. This will provide the basis for the experimental study of the process of decoherence in a quantum system. The coupling is due to the absorption of a laser photon and subsequent spontaneous emission. The variation of the laser frequencies and intensities allows one to ``engineer'' the coupling and select the master equation describing the motion of the ion.