Breakdown of the few-level approximation in dipole-dipole interacting systems

Martin Kiffner; Jörg Evers; Christoph H. Keitel

doi:10.1117/12.724524

21 June 2007 Breakdown of the few-level approximation in dipole-dipole interacting systems

Martin Kiffner, Jörg Evers, Christoph H. Keitel

Proceedings Volume 6603, Noise and Fluctuations in Photonics, Quantum Optics, and Communications; 66030C (2007) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.724524
Event: SPIE Fourth International Symposium on Fluctuations and Noise, 2007, Florence, Italy

Abstract

The validity of the few-level approximation is investigated in a system of two dipole-dipole interacting four-level atoms. Each atom is modelled by two complete sets of angular momentum multiplets. We provide two independent arguments demonstrating that the few-level approximation in general leads to incorrect predictions if it is applied to the Zeeman sublevels of the atomic level scheme. First, we show that the artificial omission of sublevels generally leads to incorrect eigenenergies of the system. The second counterexample involves an external laser field and illustrates that the relevant states in each atom are not only determined by the laser field polarization, but also by the orientation of the atomic separation vector. As the physical origin of this outcome, we identify the dipole-dipole interaction between orthogonal dipole transitions of different atoms. Our interpretation enables us to identify conditions on the atomic level structure as well as special geometries in which (partial) few-level approximations are valid.

Citation Download Citation

Martin Kiffner, Jörg Evers, and Christoph H. Keitel "Breakdown of the few-level approximation in dipole-dipole interacting systems", Proc. SPIE 6603, Noise and Fluctuations in Photonics, Quantum Optics, and Communications, 66030C (21 June 2007); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.724524

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