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Process Tomography of Field Damping and Measurement of Fock State Lifetimes by Quantum Nondemolition Photon Counting in a Cavity

M. Brune, J. Bernu, C. Guerlin, S. Deléglise, C. Sayrin, S. Gleyzes, S. Kuhr, I. Dotsenko, J. M. Raimond, and S. Haroche
Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 240402 – Published 8 December 2008
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Abstract

The relaxation of a quantum field stored in a high-Q superconducting cavity is monitored by nonresonant Rydberg atoms. The field, subjected to repetitive quantum nondemolition photon counting, undergoes jumps between photon number states. We select ensembles of field realizations evolving from a given Fock state and reconstruct the subsequent evolution of their photon number distributions. We realize in this way a tomography of the photon number relaxation process yielding all the jump rates between Fock states. The damping rates of the n photon states (0n7) are found to increase linearly with n. The results are in excellent agreement with theory including a small thermal contribution.

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  • Received 8 September 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.240402

©2008 American Physical Society

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Filling a cavity with photons, and watching them leave

Published 8 December 2008

Preparing a harmonic oscillator in a state with a well-defined energy is a tricky business. With the new tools provided by cavity and circuit quantum electrodynamics it is now possible to make these pure quantum states and watch how they evolve in time.

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Authors & Affiliations

M. Brune1,*, J. Bernu1, C. Guerlin1,†, S. Deléglise1, C. Sayrin1, S. Gleyzes1,‡, S. Kuhr1,§, I. Dotsenko1,2, J. M. Raimond1, and S. Haroche1,2

  • 1Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Ecole Normale Supérieure, CNRS, Université P. et M. Curie, 24 rue Lhomond, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
  • 2Collège de France, 11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France

  • *brune@lkb.ens.fr
  • Present address: ETH Zurich, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Present address: LCFIO, 91127 Palaiseau Cedex, France.
  • §Present address: Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Institut für Physik, Staudingerweg 7, D-55128 Mainz, Germany.

See Also

Measurement of the Decay of Fock States in a Superconducting Quantum Circuit

H. Wang, M. Hofheinz, M. Ansmann, R. C. Bialczak, E. Lucero, M. Neeley, A. D. O’Connell, D. Sank, J. Wenner, A. N. Cleland, and John M. Martinis
Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 240401 (2008)

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Vol. 101, Iss. 24 — 12 December 2008

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