Decoupling light and matter: permanent dipole moment induced collapse of Rabi oscillations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how permanent dipole moments in a two-level quantum emitter can lead to the collapse of Rabi oscillations, revealing new quantum optical phenomena in the few-photon regime.

Contribution

It provides the first analytical condition for Rabi oscillation collapse in systems with permanent dipoles, extending understanding beyond traditional symmetric models.

Findings

Permanent dipoles can suppress Rabi oscillations

Analytical conditions for collapse are established

Behavior in the few-photon regime is characterized

Abstract

Rabi oscillations is a key phenomenon among the variety of quantum optical effects that manifests itself in the periodic oscillations of a two-level system between the ground and excited states when interacting with electromagnetic field. Commonly, the rate of these oscillations scales proportionally with the magnitude of the electric field probed by the two-level system. Here, we investigate the interaction of light with a two-level quantum emitter possessing permanent dipole moments. The semi-classical approach to this problem predicts slowing down and even full suppression of Rabi oscillations due to asymmetry in diagonal components of the dipole moment operator of the two-level system. We consider behavior of the system in the fully quantized picture and establish the analytical condition of Rabi oscillations collapse. These results for the first time emphasize the behavior of two-level systems with permanent dipole moments in the few photon regime, and suggest observation of novel quantum optical effects.