Information transfer through a one-atom micromaser

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131-1156, USA
² S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Block JD, Salt Lake Kolkata 700 098, India

Received: 10 March 2004
Accepted: 7 July 2004

Abstract

We consider a realistic model for the one-atom micromaser consisting of a cavity maintained in a steady state by the streaming of two-level Rydberg atoms passing one at a time through it. We show that it is possible to monitor the robust entanglement generated between two successive experimental atoms passing through the cavity by the control decoherence parameters. We calculate the entanglement of formation of the joint two-atom state as a function of the micromaser pump parameter. We find that this is in direct correspondence with the difference of the Shannon entropy of the cavity photons before and after the passage of the atoms for a reasonable range of dissipation parameters. It is thus possible to demonstrate information transfer between the cavity and the atoms through this set-up.