Scattering of Coherent Pulses from Quantum-Optical Systems

ORAL

Abstract

We present a new calculation tool and framework for characterizing the scattering of photons by energy-nonconserving Hamiltonians into unidirectional (chiral) waveguides, for example, with coherent pulsed excitation. The temporal waveguide modes are a natural basis for characterizing scattering in quantum optics, and afford a powerful technique based on a coarse discretization of time. This overcomes limitations imposed by singularities in the waveguide-system coupling. Moreover, the integrated discretized equations can be faithfully converted to a continuous-time result by taking the appropriate limit. This approach provides a complete solution to the scattered photon field in the waveguide, and can also be used to track system-waveguide entanglement during evolution. Our method is most applicable when the number of photons scattered is known to be small, i.e. for a single-photon or photon-pair source. We illustrate two examples: analytic solutions for short laser pulses scattering off a two-level system and numerically exact solutions for short laser pulses scattering off a spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) or spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) source.

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Presenters

  • Kevin Fischer

    Stanford University, Stanford Univ - Ginzton Lab, Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University

Authors

  • Kevin Fischer

    Stanford University, Stanford Univ - Ginzton Lab, Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University

  • Rahul Trivedi

    Stanford Univ - Ginzton Lab, Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University

  • Vinay Ramasesh

    Department of Physics, University of California Berkeley, Univ of California – Berkeley, Univ of California - Berkeley, Physics, Univ of California - Berkeley

  • Irfan Siddiqi

    Univ of California - Berkeley, Department of Physics, University of California Berkeley, Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, University of California Berkeley, Univ of California – Berkeley, Physics, Univ of California -- Berkeley, Physics, Univ of California - Berkeley, University of California - Berkeley

  • Jelena Vuckovic

    Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University