Photon creation in a resonant cavity with a nonstationary plasma mirror and its detection with Rydberg atoms

TL;DR

This paper explores the dynamical Casimir effect in a resonant cavity with a nonstationary plasma mirror, analyzing photon creation and detection via Rydberg atoms, and discusses potential experimental setups.

Contribution

It derives a time-dependent Hamiltonian for photon creation in a cavity with a plasma mirror and evaluates photon generation and detection mechanisms.

Findings

Photon creation is modeled as squeezing from the Hamiltonian.

Detection of photons as atomic excitations is theoretically examined.

Feasible experimental configurations with semiconductor plasma mirrors are discussed.

Abstract

We investigate the dynamical Casimir effect and its detection with Rydberg atoms. The photons are created in a resonant cavity with a plasma mirror of a semiconductor slab which is irradiated by periodic laser pulses. The canonical Hamiltonian is derived for the creation and annihilation operators showing the explicit time-variation in the couplings, which originates from the external configuration such as a nonstationary plasma mirror. The number of created photons is evaluated as squeezing from the Heisenberg equations with the Hamiltonian. Then, the detection of the photons as the atomic excitations is examined through the atom-field interaction. Some consideration is made for a feasible experimental realization with a semiconductor plasma mirror.