Extreme Optical Coherence in Cavity-based Atomic and Molecular Physics

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This research program will study a new approach to lasers that promises to produce light with coherence and wavelength control that is two factors of ten better than any system available today. The idea is based on superradiant emission, where an ensemble of atoms with an extremely narrow atomic transition can undergo quantum synchronization. This is like a laser except the coherence is stored in the atoms rather than the light. The past decade has seen remarkable progress in the development of atomic clocks that utilize ultranarrow optical transitions. These systems are now reaching precision and accuracy thresholds that open up many potential future applications, including advanced optical communications, gravitational mapping and geodesy, next-generation time and frequency standards, and advanced navigation and global positioning. The best atomic clocks today and the lasers that probe them are the highest quality coherent oscillators that have ever existed, with intrinsic frequencies in the optical domain and coherence times that can now exceed minutes. The challenge going forward is to continue this impressive technology development and pursue the broad spectrum of practical applications.The ultranarrow intercombination lines of group-II-like atoms confined in optical cavities provide a platform for a revolutionary technology based on the steady-state superradiance from macroscopic atomic ensembles. Such systems promise to dramatically improve atomic clocks since the coherence time could be orders of magnitude longer than the best reference-cavity stabilized lasers achieved to date. Storing the coherence in the atoms rather than the light overcomes the intrinsic sensitivity of reference-cavity stabilized lasers to cavity length noise, which otherwise translates directly into frequency noise on the emitted light.This research program explores this idea to contribute to the general theory of quantum optics systems and more explicitly to the understanding of the quantum theory of the optical laser in the extreme bad-cavity limit. Collaboration with experiment is a key aspect allowing the results to impact directly in the development of applications and devices. The specific goal is to quantitatively layout the landscape that bridges steady-state superradiance and lasing and to thereby explore the variety of potential implementations. A major challenge will be to identify and mitigate quantum noise sources that adversely affect the spectral coherence of the output field.