Excitation of Forbidden Electronic Transitions in Atoms by Hermite–Gaussian Modes

authored by

Anton A. Peshkov, Elena Jordan, Markus Kromrey, Karan K. Mehta, Tanja E. Mehlstäubler, Andrey Surzhykov

Abstract

Photoexcitation of trapped ions by Hermite–Gaussian (HG) modes from guided beam structures is proposed and investigated theoretically. In particular, simple analytical expressions for the matrix elements of induced atomic transitions are derived that depend both on the parameters of HG beams and on the geometry of an experiment. By using these general expressions, the (Formula presented.) electric octupole (E3) transition is investigated in an Yb

⁺ ion, localized in the low–intensity center of the HG

₁₀ and HG

₀₁ beams. It is shown how the corresponding Rabi frequency can be enhanced by properly choosing the polarization of incident light and the orientation of an external magnetic field, which defines the quantization axis of a target ion. The calculations, performed for experimentally feasible beam parameters, indicate that the achieved Rabi frequencies can be comparable or even higher than those observed for the conventional Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) modes. Since HG-like modes can be relatively straightforwardly generated with high purity and stability from integrated photonics, these results suggest that they may form a novel tool for investigating highly-forbidden atomic transitions.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Quantum Optics
Laboratory of Nano and Quantum Engineering

External Organisation(s)

National Metrology Institute of Germany (PTB)
Cornell University
Technische Universität Braunschweig

Type

Article

Journal

Annalen der Physik

Volume

535

ISSN

1521-3889

Publication date

08.09.2023

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Physics and Astronomy(all)

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1002/andp.202300204 (Access: Open)