title: Entanglement of a mesoscopic field with an atom induced by photon graininess in a cavity.
abstract: We observe that a mesoscopic field made of several tens of microwave photons exhibits quantum features when interacting with a single Rydberg atom in a high-Q cavity. The field is split into two components whose phases differ by an angle inversely proportional to the square root of the average photon number. The field and the atomic dipole are phase entangled. These manifestations of photon graininess vanish at the classical limit. This experiment opens the way to studies of large quantum state superpositions at the quantum-classical boundary.
authors.affiliation: Département de Physique de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Auffeves
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Maioli
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Meunier
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gleyzes
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nogues
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brune
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Raimond
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Haroche