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Circular cascades

Circular cascades consist of a system of levels of which one only can be excited at a time, and the flow of this excitation is constrained to (predominantly) go in one direction, eventually coming back to where they started (whence the circularity). As a result, peculiar correlations develop in the system.

The N=2 case represents the two-level system which is the paradigm of single-photon emission. In this case, there is no oscillatory dynamics but only a return to equilibrium.

The N=3 case was first analyzed by J. Premanand.[1] See also Refs. [2][3][4][5]

The general case N was studied by ourselves as a mechanism to produce perfect-single photon sources.[6][7] It must be off-equilibrium so as to ensure strong-enough imbalance that trigger the oscillations.[8]

References

  1. Approach to Equilibrium of a Relaxing System. I. Classical 3-Level System. J. Premanand in Phys. Rev. 138:B1320 (1965).
  2. Reciprocal Relations in Irreversible Processes. I.. L. Onsager in Phys. Rev. 37:405 (1931).
  3. Rate equation solution for the temporal behavior of a three-level system. G. Zizak, J. D. Bradshaw and J. D. Winefordner in Appl. Optics 19:3631 (1980).
  4. Correlations in light emitted by three-level atoms. D. T. Pegg, R. Loudon and P. L. Knight in Phys. Rev. A 33:4085 (1986).
  5. Oscillatory solutions of the rate equations. J. Fletcher in Phys. Lett. A 27:721 (1968).
  6. Photon liquefaction in time. E. Zubizarreta Casalengua, E. del Valle and F. P. Laussy in APL Quant. 1:026117 (2024). Pdf-48px.png
  7. Template:Palomomarcos25a
  8. General Properties of Thermal-Relaxation Rate Equations. M. W. P. Strandberg and J. R. Shane in Phys. Rev. B 7:4809 (1973).