Observation of the vacuum Rabi spectrum for one trapped atom.
The transmission spectrum for one atom strongly coupled to the field of a high finesse optical resonator is observed to exhibit a clearly resolved vacuum Rabi splitting characteristic of the normal modes in the eigenvalue spectrum of the atom-cavity system. A new Raman scheme for cooling atomic motion along the cavity axis enables a complete spectrum to be recorded for an individual atom trapped within the cavity mode, in contrast to all previous measurements in cavity QED that have required averaging over 10(3)-10(5) atoms.
Boca
A
A
Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics 12-33, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Miller
R
R
Birnbaum
K M
KM
Boozer
A D
AD
McKeever
J
J
Kimble
H J
HJ