Abstract

The second order intensity correlation function can provide evidence of the non-classical nature of an electric field, as well as information about the dynamics which produce the field. In practice, this is a conditional measurement of the probability to detect a photon given that another photon was detected in coincidence or some time before. We have measured the correlation function of the photons escaping from a strongly coupled cavity QED system consisting of a high finesse interferometer traversed by a beam of optically pumped Rb atoms.¹ In this regime, the rate of reversible exchange of energy between the atoms and the cavity is larger than the cavity decay and spontaneous emission rates, and the saturation photon number is less than one. The correlations exhibit the non-classical features of antibunching and sub-Poissonian statistics, and an oscillation related to the exchange of energy taking place in the coupled system of atoms and cavity field. We view the initial photon detection as causing a projection of the system into a well defined initial state from which it coherently evolves back to steady state. A full characterization of this conditional evolution requires the measurement of the electric field as it evolves from the initial state.

© 1999 Optical Society of America