Resonant Energy Exchange between Atoms in Dispersing and Absorbing Surroundings

摘要

Within the framework of quantization of a macroscopic electromagnetic field, a master equation describing both the resonant dipole-dipole interaction (RDDI) and the resonant atom-field interaction in the presence of dispersing and absorbing macroscopic bodies is derived, with the relevant couplings being expressed in terms of the surroundings-assisted Green's tensor. It is shown that, under certain conditions, the RDDI can be regarded as being governed by an effective Hamiltonian. The theory, which applies to both weak and strong atom-field coupling, is used to study the resonant energy exchange between two (two-level) atoms initially sharing a single excitation. In particular, it is shown that, in the regime of weak atom-field coupling, there is a time window where the energy transfer follows a transfer-rate law of the type obtained by ordinary second-order perturbation theory. Finally, the spectrum of the light emitted during the energy transfer is studied and the line splittings are discussed.