Abstract

In recent years, experiments have been performed to examine the correspondence between the time-dependent behavior of light in an optical cavity and quantum mechanics.^1,2 In these experiments two nearly degenerate modes of an optical cavity were dynamically coupled; the frequency splitting of the modes was much smaller than the free spectral range of the cavity. Within this limit, it was demonstrated that the evolution of the mode amplitudes is analogous to the evolution of the populations of a two-state atom ("Optical Atom"). Outside this limit, it was assumed that the analogy would cease to hold, since the optical elements affect the field only locally, in contrast to the global nature of the coupling terms in an atom. In particular it was argued that the field evolution would have a kicked nature, if the phase shifts of the optical elements would become large.

© 1994 IEEE