Application of the weak-measurement technique to study atom-vacuum interactions

摘要

Quantum weak measurement has attracted much interest recently [J. Dressel etal., Rev. Mod. Phys. 86, 307 (2014)] because it could amplify some weak signalsand provide a technique to observe nonclassical phenomena. Here, we apply thistechnique to study the interaction between the free atoms and the vacuum in acavity. Due to the gradient field in the vacuum cavity, the external orbitalmotions and the internal electronic states of atoms can be weakly coupled viathe atom-field electric-dipole interaction. We show that, within the properlypostselected internal states, the weak atom-vacuum interaction could generate alarge change to the external motions of atoms due to the postselection-inducedweak values.