Using Quantum Feedback to Control Nonclassical Correlations in Light and Atoms

Abstract

This thesis considers two types of applications of quantum feedback control; feedback creation of nonclassical states of light, and controlling nonclassical properties of an ensemble of atoms. An electro-optical feedback loop will create an in-loop field with nonclassical photon statistics similar to squeezed light, resulting in fluorescence line-narrowing of a two-level atom coupled to such light. We extend this theory to study a three-level atom coupled to broadband squashed light, and confirm the two-level atom line-narrowing using a more realistic non-Markovian description of the feedback loop. The second type of application utilizes continuous QND measurement of atomic ensembles. If we measure the collective spin, then the system experiences conditional spin squeezing dependent on the measurement results. We show that feedback based on these results can continuously drive the system into the same conditioned state, resulting in deterministically reproducible spin squeezing. If we measure the atom number fluctuations of a BEC, then, due to the nonlinearity of atomic self interactions, this is also information about phase fluctuations. We show that feedback based on this information can greatly reduce the collisional broadening of the linewidth of an atom laser out-coupled from the condensate.