Resonance Fluorescence

Resonance Fluorescence is the incoherent light emission (fluorescence) from a system that is being excited at the same frequency than the one at which it naturally emits (resonance).

It is a fundamental problem of great interest to us, for which we are trying to establish a comprehensive timeline. We have been particularly interested in the following aspects of the problem:

• Asymmetries in Resonance Fluorescence — The power spectrum exhibit peculiar symmetrise, which can be broken in a variety of ways.
• Transients in Resonance Fluorescence — Phenomena that occur before the steady state is established.

Simplest as possible, not simpler

The problem is particularly attractive because it is probably the simplest possible, yet highly nontrivial, quantum-mechanical problem, as it can be described with a two-level system. In the words of Kimble and Mandel:

Most interesting phenomenon

One of the more interesting developments in recent years is the possibility of observing the fluorescent light emitted by a single confined atomic ion.

—Correlations in light emitted by three-level atoms. D. T. Pegg, R. Loudon and P. L. Knight in Phys. Rev. A 33:4085 (1986).

Systems

• Localized visible Ba$^+$ mono-ion oscillator. W. Neuhauser, M. Hohenstatt, P. E. Toschek and H. Dehmelt in Phys. Rev. A 22:1137 (1980). single confined atomic ion, see also [1].

Description

Here are how various people have described the process:

The phenomenon of resonance fluorescence arises with the illumination of an atomic dipole transition by resonant radiation and appears as scattering from the incident beam into other modes of the radiation field.

—A quantum-mechanical master equation treatment of the dynamical Stark effect. H. J. Carmichael and D. F. Walls in J. Phys. B.: At. Mol. Phys. 9:1199 (1976).