The effective mass of atom-radiation field system and the cavity-field Wigner distribution in the presence of a homogeneous gravitational field in the Jaynes-Cummings model

The effective mass that approximately describes the effect of a classical homogeneous gravitational field on an interacting atom-radiation field system is determined within the framework of the Jaynes-Cummings model. By taking into account both the atomic motion and gravitational field, a full quantum treatment of the internal and external dynamics of the atom is presented. By solving exactly the Schrodinger equation in the interaction picture, the evolving state of the system is found. Influence of a classical homogeneous gravitational field on the energy eigenvalues, the effective mass of atom-radiation field system and the Wigner distribution of the radiation field are studied, when initially the radiation field is prepared in a coherent state and the two-level atom is in a coherent superposition of the excited and ground states.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure

Convex ordering and quantification of quantumness

The characterization of physical systems requires a comprehensive understanding of quantum effects. One aspect is a proper quantification of the strength of such quantum phenomena. Here, a general convex ordering of quantum states will be introduced which is based on the algebraic definition of classical states. This definition resolves the ambiguity of the quantumness quantification using topological distance measures. Classical operations on quantum states will be considered to further generalize the ordering prescription. Our technique can be used for a natural and unambiguous quantification of general quantum properties whose classical reference has a convex structure. We apply this method to typical scenarios in quantum optics and quantum information theory to study measures which are based on the fundamental quantum superposition principle.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, revised version; published in special issue "150 years of Margarita and Vladimir Man'ko

Non-classical properties of quantum wave packets propagating in a Kerr-like medium

We investigate non-classical effects such as fractional revivals, squeezing and higher-order squeezing of photon-added coherent states propagating through a Kerr-like medium.The Wigner functions corresponding to these states at the instants of fractional revivals are obtained, and the extent of non-classicality quantified.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Bifurcation and Chaos in Coupled Ratchets exhibiting Synchronized Dynamics

The bifurcation and chaotic behaviour of unidirectionally coupled deterministic ratchets is studied as a function of the driving force amplitude ($a$) and frequency ($\omega$). A classification of the various types of bifurcations likely to be encountered in this system was done by examining the stability of the steady state in linear response as well as constructing a two-parameter phase diagram in the ($a -\omega$) plane. Numerical explorations revealed varieties of bifurcation sequences including quasiperiodic route to chaos. Besides, the familiar period-doubling and crises route to chaos exhibited by the one-dimensional ratchet were also found. In addition, the coupled ratchets display symmetry-breaking, saddle-nodes and bubbles of bifurcations. Chaotic behaviour is characterized by using the sensitivity to initial condition as well as the Lyapunov exponent spectrum; while a perusal of the phase space projected in the Poincar$\acute{e}$ cross-section confirms some of the striking features.Comment: 7 pages; 8 figure

Mean parity of single quantum excitation of some optical fields in thermal environments

The mean parity (the Wigner function at the origin) of excited binomial states, excited coherent states and excited thermal states in thermal channel is investigated in details. It is found that the single-photon excited binomial state and the single-photon excited coherent state exhibit certain similarity in the aspect of their mean parity in the thermal channel. We show the negative mean parity can be regarded as an indicator of nonclassicality of single-photon excitation of optical fields with a little coherence, especially for the single-photon excited thermal states.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, RevTex4; PACS numbers: 42.50.Dv, 03.65.Yz, 05.40.Ca; Three typo errors have been correcte

Creating and Verifying a Quantum Superposition in a Micro-optomechanical System

Micro-optomechanical systems are central to a number of recent proposals for realizing quantum mechanical effects in relatively massive systems. Here we focus on a particular class of experiments which aim to demonstrate massive quantum superpositions, although the obtained results should be generalizable to similar experiments. We analyze in detail the effects of finite temperature on the interpretation of the experiment, and obtain a lower bound on the degree of non-classicality of the cantilever. Although it is possible to measure the quantum decoherence time when starting from finite temperature, an unambiguous demonstration of a quantum superposition requires the mechanical resonator to be in or near the ground state. This can be achieved by optical cooling of the fundamental mode, which also provides a method to measure the mean phonon number in that mode. We also calculate the rate of environmentally induced decoherence and estimate the timescale for gravitational collapse mechanisms as proposed by Penrose and Diosi. In view of recent experimental advances, practical considerations for the realization of the described experiment are discussed.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, published in New J. Phys. 10 095020 (2008); minor revisions to improve clarity; fixed possibly corrupted figure

Nonclassical properties of states engineered by superpositions of quantum operations on classical states

We consider an experimentally realizable scheme for manipulating quantum states using a general superposition of products of field annihilation ($\hat{a}$) and creation ($\hat{a}^\dag$) operators of the type ($s \hat{a}\hat{a}^\dag+ t \hat{a}^\dag \hat{a}$), with $s^2 + t^2 = 1$. Such an operation, when applied on states with classical features, is shown to introduce strong nonclassicality. We quantify the generated degree of nonclassicality by the negative volume of Wigner distribution in the phase space and investigate two other observable nonclassical features, sub-Poissonian statistics and squeezing. We find that the operation introduces negativity in the Wigner distribution of an input coherent state and changes the Gaussianity of an input thermal state. This provides the possibility of engineering quantum states with specific nonclassical features.Comment: 19 pages, IOPclass(iopart.cls

Wigner function evolution in self-Kerr Medium derived by Entangled state representation

By introducing the thermo entangled state representation, we convert the calculation of Wigner function (WF) of density operator to an overlap between "two pure" states in a two-mode enlarged Fock space. Furthermore, we derive a new WF evolution formula of any initial state in self-Kerr Medium with photon loss and find that the photon number distribution for any initial state is independent of the coupling factor with Kerr Medium, where the number state is not affected by the Kerr nonlinearity and evolves into a density operator of binomial distribution.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur