this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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[–] montechristo 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I describe the atoms using a so called Lindblad master equation. The atoms are kept in this description, but the light field is eliminated using two assumptions:

  1. The coupling between the two is very weak.
  2. Correlations between the two decay so fast that this can be considered instantaneous.

The later produces white noise.

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's cool

In most fields " so fast that's instantaneous" is pretty fast, but in nuclear and quantum physics that's a whole new level.

What is the order of magnitude of your " too fast ”? I will invert that to state the bandwidth in Hertz.

[–] montechristo 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Typical transition frequencies between two levels of an atom are 10^15Hz. The coupling between atoms and light is on the order of the decay rate at which photons are transmitted, which sits at around 10^6Hz.