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Why material slow light does not improve cavity-enhanced atom detection

B. Megyeri, A. Lampis, G. Harvie, R. Culver, J. Goldwin*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

We discuss the prospects for enhancing absorption and scattering of light from a weakly coupled atom in a high-finesse optical cavity by adding a medium with large, positive group index of refraction. The slow-light effect is known to narrow the cavity transmission spectrum and increase the photon lifetime, but the quality factor of the cavity may not be increased in a metrologically useful sense. Specifically, detection of the weakly coupled atom through either cavity ringdown measurements or the Purcell effect fails to improve with the addition of material slow light. A single-atom model of the dispersive medium helps elucidate why this is the case.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)723-729
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Modern Optics
Volume65
Issue number5-6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Mar 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

  • cavity quantum electrodynamics
  • cavity ringdown spectroscopy
  • Electromagnetically induced transparency
  • Purcell effect
  • slow light

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