This award will support a three-year cooperative research project in physics between Professor Pierre Meystre, Optical Sciences Center, The University of Arizona, and Professor Herbert Walther, Director, Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Garching, Federal Republic of Germany. The scientists will study selected aspects of the dynamics of one or a few atoms located in optical cavities with dimensions approximating the wavelength of light radiated by that atom. Because of quantum effects, the radiative properties of atoms in such systems differ significantly from those of the same atoms in free space. A major effort will be directed toward the study of the microscopic maser. An important feature of this device is that its operating regime can be varied from truly classical to truly quantum mechanical, thus allowing one to monitor, for example, how classical instabilities and chaos are modified as the system approaches the quantum regime. In another important aspect of this work, the collaborating scientists will study the conditions under which radiation with intensity fluctuations below those of conventional lasers (subpoissonian light) can be produced. This cooperative study in cavity quantum electrodynamics is aimed at understanding, at a fundamental level, what causes the radiation of coherent light (laser light). Professor Meystre and his research group are theoretically oriented in this area, and Professor Walther and his colleagues in Garching have the only existing experimental facilities capable of testing the theoretical predictions of the Meystre group. The German laboratory also has a Cray-XMP supercomputer which will be available to Professor Meystre for these studies. The work is expected to present new clues toward the understanding of the correspondence between quantum and classical phenomena in so-called dissipative systems, that is, systems in which energy is not conserved.
