Effect of field quantization on Rabi oscillation of equidistant cascade four-level system

TL;DR

This paper exactly solves a four-level cascade system interacting with a radiation field, comparing semiclassical and quantum models, revealing symmetry breaking upon quantization and exploring collapse and revival phenomena.

Contribution

It provides an exact solution for the quantum and semiclassical dynamics of a four-level system, highlighting symmetry effects and collapse-revival behavior.

Findings

Symmetry in Rabi oscillations is preserved semiclassically but broken quantum mechanically.

Collapse and revival phenomena are observed in the quantum model.

Quantization destroys the symmetry seen in classical field interactions.

Abstract

We have exactly solved a model of equidistant cascade four-level system interacting with a single-mode radiation field both semiclassically and quantum mechanically by exploiting its similarity with Jaynes-Cummings model. For the classical field, it is shown that the Rabi oscillation of the system initially in the first level (second level) is similar to that of the system when it is initially in the fourth level (third level). We then proceed to solve the quantized version of the model where the dressed state is constructed by using a six parameter four-dimensional matrix and show that the symmetry exhibited in the Rabi oscillation of the system for the semiclassical model is completely destroyed on the quantization of the cavity field. Finally we have studied the collapse and revival of the system for the cavity field-mode in a coherent state to discuss the restoration of symmetry and its implication is discussed.