Vacuum Rabi splitting and intracavity dark state in a cavity-atoms system

TL;DR

This paper experimentally investigates the transmission spectrum of a cavity coupled with cold Rb atoms, revealing vacuum Rabi splitting and intracavity dark states, with potential implications for quantum information processing.

Contribution

It demonstrates the observation of multi-atom vacuum Rabi splitting and intracavity dark states in a cavity-atom system using a Lambda-type three-level configuration.

Findings

Observation of multi-atom vacuum Rabi splitting

Detection of intracavity dark state with narrowed linewidth

Dark state resonance insensitive to cavity frequency changes

Abstract

We report experimental measurements of the transmission spectrum of an optical cavity coupled with cold Rb atoms. We observe the multi-atom vacuum Rabi splitting of a composite cavity and atom system. When a coupling field is applied to the atoms and induces the resonant two-photon Raman transition with the cavity field in a Lamda-type three-level system, we observe a cavity transmission spectrum with two vacuum Rabi sidebands and a central peak representing the intracavity dark state. The central peak linewidth is significantly narrowed by the dark-state resonance and its position is insensitive to the frequency change of the empty cavity.