Photon emission by an atom in a lossy cavity

TL;DR

This paper investigates how an excited atom in a lossy cavity emits photons, showing how the emitted pulse shape depends on the atom-field interaction time and losses, using analytical solutions and the quantum trajectory method.

Contribution

It provides analytical solutions for photon emission dynamics in a lossy cavity, highlighting control of pulse shapes via interaction time and including realistic loss mechanisms.

Findings

Pulse shape depends on atom-field interaction time

Loss mechanisms significantly affect emission dynamics

Short interaction times enable pulse shape control

Abstract

The dynamics of an initially excited two-level atom in a lossy cavity is studied by using the quantum trajectory method. Unwanted losses are included, such as photon absorption and scattering by the cavity mirrors and spontaneous emission of the atom. Based on the obtained analytical solutions, it is shown that the shape of the extracted spatiotemporal radiation mode sensitively depends on the atom-field interaction. In the case of a short-term atom-field interaction we show how different pulse shapes for the field extracted from the cavity can be controlled by the interaction time.