Closed orbit theory is generalized to the semiclassical calculation of cross-correlated recurrence functions for atoms in external fields. The cross-correlation functions are inverted by a high resolution spectral analyzer to obtain the semiclassical eigenenergies and transition matrix elements. The method is demonstrated for dipole transitions of the hydrogen atom in a magnetic field. This is the first semiclassical calculation of individual quantum transition strengths from closed orbit theory.
High approximations of semiclassical trajectory-coherent states (TCS) and of semiclassical Green function (in the class of semiclassically concentrated states) for the Dirac operator with anomalous Pauli interaction are obtained. For Schrodinger and Dirac operators trajectory-coherent representations are constructed up to any precision with respect to h, h-->0.
We present a numerical study comparing semiclassical and quantum models of a damped, strongly interacting cavity QED system composed of a single two-level atom interacting with a single quantized cavity mode driven externally by a tunable monochromatic field. We compute the steady state transmission spectrum of the coupled system under each model and show that in the strong coupling regime, the two models yield starkly different results. The fully quantum mechanical model of the system correctly yields the expected multiphoton transmission spectra while the semiclassical approach results in a …
The range of validity of the semiclassical Smoluchowski equation derived recently by Coffey et al is discussed. The analysis is based on the quantum Smoluchowski equation derived by the present author before. A quantum generalization of the Einstein law of Brownian motion is also obtained.
In the semiclassical treatment of gravity, an external observer can measure only the mean (not the exact) mass of the black hole (BH). By contrast, in fully quantum gravity the exact (not only mean) BH mass is measurable by the external observer. This additional information (missing in the semiclassical treatment) available to the external observer significantly helps to understand how information leaks out during the BH evaporation.
Strong interaction between the light field and an atom is often achieved with cavities. Recent experiments have used a different configuration: a propagating light field is strongly focused using a system of lenses, the atom being supposed to sit at the focal position. In reality, this last condition holds only up to some approximation; in particular, at any finite temperature, the atom position fluctuates. We present a formalism that describes the focalized field and the atom sitting at an arbitrary position. As a first application, we show that thermal fluctuations do account for the extinct…
A multi-dimensional semiclassical description of excitation of a Rydberg electron by half-cycle pulses is developed and applied to the study of energy- and angle-resolved ionization spectra. Characteristic novel phenomena observable in these spectra such as interference oscillations and semiclassical glory and rainbow scattering are discussed and related to the underlying classical dynamics of the Rydberg electron. Modifications to the predictions of the impulse approximation are examined that arise due to finite pulse durations.
We study the spectrum of the hydrogen atom in Snyder space in a semiclassical approximation based on a generalization of the Born-Sommerfeld quantization rule. While the corrections to the standard quantum mechanical spectrum arise at first order in the Snyder parameter for the $l=0$ states, they are of second order for $l\neq 0$. This can be understood as due to the different topology of the regions of integration in phase space.
The semiclassical dynamics of atoms are theoretically studied, when the atoms are confined inside a standing-wave high-finesse resonator. The atoms are cooled by scattering processes in which the photons of a transverse laser are coherently scattered into the cavity mode. We derive a Fokker-Planck equation for the atomic center-of-mass variables which allows us to determine the equations of motion in the semiclassical limit for any value of the intensity of the laser field. We extract its prediction for the dynamics when the resonator is essentially in the vacuum state and the atoms are cooled…
We present a systematic semiclassical model for the simulation of the dynamics of a single two-level atom strongly coupled to a driven high-finesse optical cavity. From the Fokker-Planck equation of the combined atom-field Wigner function we derive stochastic differential equations for the atomic motion and the cavity field. The corresponding noise sources exhibit strong correlations between the atomic momentum fluctuations and the noise in the phase quadrature of the cavity field. The model provides an effective tool to investigate localisation effects as well as cooling and trapping times. I…
Semiclassical calculations using the Herman-Kluk initial value treatment are performed to determine energy eigenvalues of bound and resonance states of the collinear helium atom. Both the $eZe$ configuration (where the classical motion is fully chaotic) and the $Zee$ configuration (where the classical dynamics is nearly integrable) are treated. The classical motion is regularized to remove singularities that occur when the electrons collide with the nucleus. Very good agreement is obtained with quantum energies for bound and resonance states calculated by the complex rotation method.
We study the Hydrogen atom as a quantum mechanical system with a Coulomb like potential, with a semiclassical approach based on an effective description of quantum mechanics. This treatment allows us to describe the quantum state of the system as a system of infinite many classical equations for expectation values of configuration variables, their moments and quantum dispersions. It also provides a semiclassical description of the orbits and the evolution of observables and spreadings and their back-reaction on the evolution.
We present detailed numerical simulations of semiclassical and quantum spectra of a cavity quantum electrodynamics system consisting of a single three-level atom in $Λ$-configuration with one of its transitions strongly interacting with a quantized cavity mode while the other is driven by a coherent classical field. After deriving the equations of motion for the expected values of the system operators from the master equation, we compute numerically the semiclassical and quantum spectra of the system under various levels of external driving field strengths. In the semiclassical approach we neg…
The interaction of a five-level atomic system involving electromagnetically induced transparency with four light fields is investigated. Two different light-atom configurations are considered, and their efficiency in generating large nonlinear cross-phase shifts compared. The dispersive properties of those schemes are analyzed in detail, and the conditions leading to group velocity matching for two of the light fields identified. An analytical treatment based on amplitude equations is used in order to obtain approximate solutions for the susceptibilities, ehich are shown to fit well with the n…
We investigate the linewidth of a quasi-continuous atom laser within a semiclassical framework. In the high flux regime, the lasing mode can exhibit a number of undesirable features such as density fluctuations. We show that the output therefore has a complicated structure that can be somewhat simplified using Raman outcoupling methods and energy-momentum selection rules. In the weak outcoupling limit, we find that the linewidth of an atom laser is instantaneously Fourier limited, but, due to the energy `chirp' associated with the draining of a condensate, the long-term linewidth of an atom la…
We consider a simple quantum model of atom-molecule conversion where bosonic atoms can combine into diatomic molecules and vice versa. The many-particle system can be expressed in terms of the generators a deformed $SU(2)$ algebra, and the mean-field dynamics takes place on a deformed version of the Bloch sphere, a teardrop shaped surface with a cusp singularity. We analyse the mean-field and many-particle correspondence, which shows typical features of quantum-classical correspondence. We demonstrate that semiclassical methods can be employed to recover full many-particle features from the me…
A new heuristic model of interaction of an atomic system with a gravitational wave is proposed. In it, the gravitational wave alters the local electromagnetic field of the atomic nucleus, as perceived by the electron, which changes the energy of the system. The spectral decomposition of the wave function is calculated, from which the energy of the system can be obtained. The results suggest a shift in the energy difference of the atomic energy levels, which will induce a small detuning to any given resonant transition. The detuning increases with the quantum numbers of the levels, making the e…
We investigate theoretically soliton excitations and dynamics of their formation in strongly correlated systems of ultracold bosonic atoms in two and three dimensional optical lattices. We derive equations of nonlinear hydrodynamics in the regime of strong interactions and incommensurate fillings, when atoms can be treated as hard core bosons. When parameters change in one direction only we obtain Korteweg-de Vries type equation away from half-filling and modified KdV equation at half-filling. We apply this general analysis to a problem of the decay of the density step. We consider stability o…
The motion of a neutral atom endowed with a magnetic moment interacting with the magnetic field is determined from the Ehrenfest-like equations of motion. These equations for the average values of the translational and spin degrees of freedom are derived from the Schrödinger-Pauli wave equation and they form a set of nine coupled nonlinear evolution equations. The numerical and analytic solutions of these equations are obtained for the combination of the rotating magnetic field of a wave carrying orbital angular momentum and a static magnetic field. The running wave traps the atom only in the …
Broadband homodyne detection of the light transmitted by a Fabry-Perot cavity containing a strongly-coupled $^{133}$Cs atom is used to probe the dynamic optical response in a regime where semiclassical theory predicts bistability but strong quantum corrections should apply. While quantum fluctuations destabilize true equilibrium bistability, our observations confirm the existence of metastable states with finite lifetimes and a hysteretic response is apparent when the optical drive is modulated on comparable timescales. Our experiment elucidates remnant semiclassical behavior in the attojoule …
We present a Monte Carlo wavefunction method for semiclassically modeling spin-$\frac12$ systems in a magnetic field gradient in one dimension. Our model resolves the conflict of determining what classical force an atom should be subjected to when it is in an arbitrary superposition of internal states. Spatial degrees of freedom are considered to be an environment, entanglement with which decoheres the internal states. Atoms follow classical trajectories through space, punctuated by probabilistic jumps between spin states. We modify the conventional Monte Carlo wavefunction method to jump betw…
We study the Dirac equation with slowly varying external potentials. Using matrix-valued Wigner functions we prove that the electron follows with high precision the classical orbit and that the spin precesses according to the BMT equation with gyromagnetic ratio g=2.
The interaction between superconducting qubits and one-dimensional microwave transmission lines has been studied experimentally and theoretically in the past two decades. In this work, we investigate the spontaneous emission of an initially excited artificial atom which is capacitively coupled to a semi-infinite transmission line, shorted at one end. This configuration can be viewed as an atom in front of a mirror. The distance between the atom and the mirror introduces a time-delay in the system, which we take into account fully. When the delay time equals an integer number of atom oscillatio…
Time reversal mirrors have been successfully implemented for various kinds of waves propagating in complex media. In particular, acoustic waves in chaotic cavities exhibit a refocalization that is extremely robust against external perturbations or the partial use of the available information. We develop a semiclassical approach in order to quantitatively describe the refocusing signal resulting from an initially localized wave-packet. The time-dependent reconstructed signal grows linearly with the temporal window of injection, in agreement with the acoustic experiments, and reaches the same sp…
The transmission of a probe field experiencing electromagnetically induced transparency and optical switching in an atomic medium enclosed in an optical cavity is investigated. Using a semiclassical input-output theory for the interaction between an ensemble of four-level atoms and three optical cavity fields coupled to the same spatial cavity mode, we derive the steady-state transmission spectra of the probe field and discuss the dynamics of the intracavity field buildup. The analytical and numerical results are in good agreement with recent experiments with ion Coulomb crystals [M. Albert et…
Using time-independent scattering matrices, we study how the effects of nonclassical paths on the recurrence spectra of diamagnetic atoms can be extracted from purely quantal calculations. This study reveals an intimate relationship between two types of nonclassical paths: exotic ghost orbits and diffractive orbits. This relationship proves to be a previously unrecognized reason for the success of semiclassical theories, like closed-orbit theory, and permits a comprehensive reformulation of the semiclassical theory that elucidates its convergence properties.
We consider a system with spin-orbit coupling and derive equations of motion which include the effects of Berry curvatures. We apply these equations to investigate the dynamics of particles with equal Rashba-Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in one dimension. In our derivation, the adiabatic transformation is performed first and leads to quantum Heisenberg equations of motion for momentum and position operators. These equations explicitly contain position-space, momentum-space, and phase-space Berry curvature terms. Subsequently, we perform the semiclassical approximation, and obtain the semicla…
A recent proposal by Hallam et al. suggested using the chaotic properties of the semiclassical equations of motion, obtained by the time dependent variational principle (TDVP), as a characterization of quantum chaos. In this paper, we calculate the Lyapunov spectrum of the semiclassical theory approximating the quantum dynamics of a strongly interacting Rydberg atom array, which lead to periodic motion. In addition, we calculate the effect of quantum fluctuations around this approximation, and obtain the escape rate from the periodic orbit. We compare this rate to the rate extracted from the e…
The usual semiclassical approximation for atom-field dynamics consists in substituting the field operators by complex numbers related to the (supposedly large enough) intensity of the field. We show that a semiclassical evolution for coupled systems can always be obtained by frequent Zeno-like measurements on the state of one subsystems, independently of the field intensity in the example given. We study the Jaynes Cummings model from this perspective.
A Sagnac atom interferometer can be constructed using a Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a cylindrically symmetric harmonic potential. Using the Bragg interaction with a set of laser beams, the atoms can be launched into circular orbits, with two counterpropagating interferometers allowing many sources of common-mode noise to be excluded. In a perfectly symmetric and harmonic potential, the interferometer output would depend only on the rotation rate of the apparatus. However, deviations from the ideal case can lead to spurious phase shifts. These phase shifts have been theoretically analyz…
We provide a semiclassical optics derivation of Einstein's rate equations (ERE) for a two-level system illuminated by a broadband light field, setting a limit for their validity that depends on the light spectral properties (namely on the height and width of its spectrum). Starting from the optical Bloch equations for individual atoms, the ensemble averaged atomic inversion is shown to follow ERE under two concurrent hypotheses: (i) the decorrelation of the inversion at a given time from the field at later times, and (ii) a Markov approximation owed to the short correlation time of the light f…
Atoms can be extracted from a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) by driving spin-flips to untrapped states. The coherence properties of the BEC are transfered to the released atoms, creating a coherent beam of matter refered to as an atom laser. In this work, the extraction of atoms from a BEC is investigated numerically by solving a coupled set of Gross-Pitaevskii equations in up to three dimensions. The result is compared to experimental data and a semiclassical rate model. In the weak-coupling regime, quantitative agreement is reached between theory and experiment and a semiclassical ra…
We study the excitation spectrum of a family of transverse-field spin chain models with variable interaction range and arbitrary spin $S$, which in the case of $S=1/2$ interpolates between the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick and the Ising model. For any finite number $N$ of spins, a semiclassical energy manifold is derived in the large-$S$ limit employing bosonization methods, and its geometry is shown to determine not only the leading-order term but also the higher-order quantum fluctuations. Based on a multi-configurational mean-field ansatz, we obtain the semiclassical backbone of the quantum spectrum…
We show the transition from a fully quantized interaction to a semiclassical one in entangled small number quantum systems using the quantum trajectories approach. In particular, we simulate the microwave Ramsey zones used in Rydberg atom interferometry, filling in the gap between the strongly entangling Jaynes Cummings evolution and the semiclassical rotation of the atomic internal states. We also correlate the information flowing with leaking photons to the entanglement generation between cavity field and flying atom and detail the roles played by the strong dissipation and the external driv…
We determine the ground state energy of atoms and quantum dots whose number N of electrons is large. We show that the dominant terms of the energy are those given by a semiclassical Hartree-Fock theory. Correlation effects appear at the order N ln N for atoms and the order N for quantum dots. We compute them. The semiclassical Hartree-Fock theory creates oscillations in the ground state energy as a function of N . These oscillations reflect the dynamics of a classical particle moving in the presence of the Thomas-Fermi potential. The dynamics is regular for atoms and some dots, but we present …
The simplest model of three coupled Bose-Einstein Condensates (BEC) is investigated using a group theoretical method. The stationary solutions are determined using the SU(3) group under the mean field approximation. This semiclassical analysis using the system symmetries shows a transition in the dynamics of the system from self trapping to delocalization at a critical value for the coupling between the condensates. The global dynamics are investigated by examination of the stable points and our analysis shows the structure of the stable points depends on the ratio of the condensate coupling t…
We extend an earlier semiclassical model to describe the dissipative motion of N atoms coupled to M modes inside a coherently driven high-finesse cavity. The description includes momentum diffusion via spontaneous emission and cavity decay. Simple analytical formulas for the steady-state temperature and the cooling time for a single atom are derived and show surprisingly good agreement with direct stochastic simulations of the semiclassical equations for N atoms with properly scaled parameters. A thorough comparison with standard free-space Doppler cooling is performed and yields a lower tempe…
The dynamics of observables which are matrices depending on \hbar and taking values in classical phase space is defined retaining the terms up to the first order in \hbar of the Moyal bracket. Within this semiclassical approach a first order lagrangian involving gauge fields is studied as a constrained hamiltonian system. This provides a systematic study of spin dynamics in the presence of non-abelian Berry gauge fields. We applied the method to various types of dynamical spin systems and clarified some persisting discussions. In particular employing the Berry gauge field which generates the T…
The critical value of the atom-field coupling strength for a finite number of atoms is deter- mined by means of both, semiclassical and exact solutions. In the semiclassical approach we use a variational procedure with coherent and symmetry-adapted states, while for the exact quantum solution the concept of fidelity is employed. These procedures allow for the determination of the phase transitions in the model, and coincide in the thermodynamic limit. For the three cases men- tioned above, universal parametric curves are obtained for the expectation values of both the first quadrature of the e…
This paper presents a Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) implementation of the Semiclassical Initial Value Representation (SC-IVR) propagator for vibrational molecular spectroscopy calculations. The time-averaging formulation of the SC-IVR for power spectrum calculations is employed. Details about the GPU implementation of the semiclassical code are provided. Four molecules with an increasing number of atoms are considered and the GPU-calculated vibrational frequencies perfectly match the benchmark values. The computational time scaling of two GPUs (NVIDIA Tesla C2075 and Kepler K20) respectivel…
