Physics 430 & 631
Fall 2025

Quantum Optics and Atomics 

Course Materials:

• Week 0: 8/28                     Intro to Atomic Physics and Quantum Optics
  Syllabus
  
  Thursday, August 28 Overheads -- Introductory lecture
  Lecture 1, Thursday, August 28 Review of basics, semi-classical atom, Dipole radiation.
  
  Problem Set 1, due date: September 4 (typo fixed)
  
  
  
• Week 1: 9/2-4                     Coherence
  Lecture 2, Tuesday, September 2 Semi-classical atom, radiative damping, Rayleigh scattering, coherence.
  
  Lecture 3, Thursday, September 4 Michelson interferometer, coherence length & time, 1st order coherence.
  
  Problem Set 2, due date: September 11
  
  
  
• Week 2: 9/9-11                     1st and 2nd Order Coherence
  Lecture 4, Tuesday, September 9 Wiener-Khintchine theorem, 2nd order correlation function.
  Tuesday, September 9 Overheads 1st order coherence, pulsed lasers, 2nd order coherence, bunching.
  
  Lecture 5, Thursday, September 11 2nd order correlation function, 2-level atom, Bloch sphere, time evolution.
  Thursday, September 11 Overheads 2nd order correlation function applications, bunching, anti-bunching.
  
  Problem Set 3, due date: September 18
  
  
  
• Week 3: 9/16-18                     2-Level Atom Interacting with an EM Field
  Lecture 6, Tuesday, September 16 2-level atom with an EM field, rotating wave approx., Rabi flopping.
  Tuesday, September 16 Overheads 2-level and 5-level Rabi flopping examples.
  
  Lecture 7, Thursday, September 18 Energy level shift, avoided crossing, Landau-Zener, dressed atom picture.
  
  
  
• Week 4: 9/23-25                     Dressed Atom Theory
  Lecture 8, Tuesday, September 23 Dressed atom Hamiltonian, AC Stark shift, dressed states.
  Tuesday, September 23 Overheads Optical dipole traps, optical tweezers, Mollow triplet.
  
  Lecture 9, Thursday, September 25 Bloch sphere for the dressed atom.
  
  Problem Set 4, due date: October 2
  
  
  
• Week 5: 9/30-10/2                     Spontaneous Emission
  Lecture 10, Tuesday, September 30 Ramsey interferometer on Bloch sphere, spontaneous emission.
  Tuesday, September 30 Overheads Ramsey interferometry, atomic clock.
  
  Lecture 11, Thursday, October 2 Spontaneous emission, decoherence, density matrix.
  
  Midterm test on Tuesday, October 14
  
  
• Week 6: 10/7                     Optical Bloch Equations
  Lecture 12, Tuesday, October 7 Density matrix, optical Bloch equations, resonance fluorescence, Beer's law.
  Tuesday, October 7 Overheads Fluorescence and absorption imaging.
  
  
  
• Week 7: 10/14-16                     Midterm & Monte Carlo Simulations
  Midterm test on Tuesday, October 14
  
  Thursday, October 16 Overheads TUTORIAL: Intro to Monte Carlo simulations (classical).
  Tutorial worksheet
  
  Problem Set 5, due date: October 23 (new due date: Tuesday, October 28)
  
  Undergraduate Students: Guidelines for Final Paper and Oral Presentation, due dates: Last week of classes
  
  
  
• Week 8: 10/21-23                     Quantum Trajectories, Multi-Level Atoms
  Lecture 13, Tuesday, October 21 Quantum trajectory picture and algorithm.
  Tuesday, October 21 Overheads #1 Quantum trajectories.
  Tuesday, October 21 Overheads #2 Alkali atoms, basic levels, fine structure.
  
  Lecture 14, Thursday, October 23 (Dr. Adam Vernon guest lecture) Fine structure, hyperfine structure.
  Thursday, October 23 Overheads (Dr. Adam Vernon guest lecture) hyperfine structure, hydrogen 21 cm line.
  
  
  
• Week 9: 10/28-30                     Multi-Level Atoms, Transition Selection Rules
  Lecture 15, Tuesday, October 28 DC Zeeman shifts, Wigner-Eckart Theorem, M1 transition selection rules.
  Tuesday, October 28 Overheads Zeeman sub-structure, Breit-Rabi formula, Clebsch-Gordan coefficients.
  
  Lecture 16, Thursday, October 30 M1 and E1 transition selection rules, optical pumping.
  Thursday, October 30 Overheads E1 transition selection rules, cycling transitions, optical pumping.
  
  
  
• Week 10: 11/6                       Three Level Atoms with two EM fields
  No class on Tuesday, November 4, due to Virginia state elections
  
  Lecture 17, Thursday, November 6 3-level atom with 2 laser fields, Raman transitions, STIRAP, Bragg pulses, CTAP.
  
  
  
• Week 11: 11/11-13                  Electromagnetically-Induced Transparency & Laser Cooling
  Lecture 18, Tuesday, November 11 (Prof. Irina Novikova) Doppler broadening, EM-induced transparency (EIT).
  
  Lecture 19, Thursday, November 13 Doppler cooling force, fluorescence heating rate, Doppler temperature.
  Thursday, November 13 Overheads Doppler cooling, optical molasses, magneto-optical trap.
  
  Problem Set 6, due date: November 20
  
  
  
• Week 12: 11/18-20                  Sisyphus Cooling & Magnetic Traps
  Lecture 20, Tuesday, November 18 Doppler temperature, polarization gradient lattice, Sisyphus cooling.
  Tuesday, November 18 Overheads Sisyphus cooling.
  
  Lecture 21, Thursday, November 20 Magnetic traps, Earnshaw's Theorem, dressed atom picture of RF evaporation.
  Thursday, November 13 Overheads Evaporative cooling, dressed atom picture of RF evaporation.
  
  Problem Set 7, due date: December 2
  
  
  
• Week 13: 11/25                       Bose-Einstein Condensation
  Lecture 22, Tuesday, November 25 BEC, Gross-Pitaevskii equ., Thomas-Fermi approximation.
  Tuesday, November 25 Overheads BEC, anisotropic expansion, bimodal distribution, atomic interference.