Full counting statistics of photons interacting with emitter

TL;DR

This paper provides an exact calculation of photon counting statistics in a light-matter interaction model, revealing how quantum scattering modifies initial Poissonian photon distributions and offering insights into many-body correlations.

Contribution

It introduces an exact method to compute full counting statistics in a multimode light coupled to a two-level emitter, highlighting quantum scattering effects.

Findings

Poissonian statistics become non-Poissonian due to quantum scattering

Measurement of photon statistics reveals many-body correlations

Exact analytical results for photon counting in a basic light-matter model

Abstract

A complete characterization of quantum fluctuations in many-body systems is accessible through the full counting statistics. We present an exact computation of statistical properties of light in a basic model of light-matter interaction: a multimode photonic field coupled to a single two-level emitter. We mostly consider an initial coherent state in a given mode and demonstrate how the original Poissonian statistics gets modified because of quantum many-body scattering effects leading to non-Poissonian distributions. We argue that measuring this statistics in a simple quantum optical setup provides an insight into many-body correlation effects with photons.