• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevA.65.063414
• Corpus ID: 119095977

Stability of excited atoms in small cavities

@article{FloresHidalgo2001StabilityOE,
  title={Stability of excited atoms in small cavities},
  author={G. Flores-Hidalgo and Adolfo P. C. Malbouisson and Y. W. Milla},
  journal={Physical Review A},
  year={2001},
  volume={65},
  pages={063414}
}

• G. Flores-Hidalgo, A. Malbouisson, Y. Milla
• Published 8 November 2001
• Materials Science
• Physical Review A

We consider a system consisting of an atom in the approximation of a harmonic oscillator of frequency $\overline{\ensuremath{\omega}},$ coupled to the scalar potential inside a spherical reflecting cavity of radius R. We use dressed states introduced in a previous publication [Andion, Malbouisson, and Mattos Neto, J. Phys. A 34, 3735 (2001)], which allow a nonperturbative unified description of the atom radiation process, in both cases, of a finite or an arbitrarily large cavity. We perform a study of the energy distribution in a small cavity, with the initial condition that the atom is in the first excited state and we conclude for the quasi-stability of the excited atom. For instance, for a frequency $\overline{\ensuremath{\omega}}$ of the order $\overline{\ensuremath{\omega}}\ensuremath{\sim}4.00\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{14}/\mathrm{s}$ (in the visible red), starting from the initial condition that the atom is in the first excited level, we find that for a cavity with diameter $2R\ensuremath{\sim}1.0\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}6} \mathrm{m},$ the probability of the atom being at any time still in the first excited level, will be of the order of 97%. For a typical microwave frequency $\overline{\ensuremath{\omega}}\ensuremath{\sim}2.00\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{10}/\mathrm{s}$ we find stability in the first excited state also of the order of 97% for a cavity radius $R\ensuremath{\sim}1.4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}2} \mathrm{m}.$