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A Two-Level Atom: General Setup

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Quantum Trajectories and Measurements in Continuous Time

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A two-level atom is perhaps the simplest quantum system, but in spite of this it has a very rich behaviour. So, it represents an ideal physical system to illustrate the theory presented so far [1]. The fluorescence spectrum of a two-level atom stimulated by an intense monochromatic laser is highly non-trivial; it presents a typical three-peaked structure, which is now known as Mollow spectrum [2]. A measurement scheme which allows to obtain the spectrum is the heterodyne detection, which we discussed in Chap. 7. This simple quantum system presents also another typical quantum phenomenon, the “squeezing” of the fluorescence light, which can be revealed by homodyne detection [3].

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Correspondence to Alberto Barchielli .

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Barchielli, A., Gregoratti, M. (2009). A Two-Level Atom: General Setup. In: Quantum Trajectories and Measurements in Continuous Time. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 782. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01298-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01298-3_8

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