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Surprises in Quantum Optics

Peter W. Milonni, PhD, Ï㽶ÊÓƵ, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Presented in Goergen 101 and on Zoom

Abstract

Many remarkable effects have been discovered in the field of quantum optics since it began seventy years ago with the intensity-correlation studies of Hanbury Brown and Twiss. Some of these (arguably) surprising effects involve one of the most fundamental processes in nature: spontaneous emission of radiation. Attention will be focused on such effects relating to the radiation by atoms in different environments, cavity QED, entanglement and the impossibility of “faster-than-light” communication.

Biography

Peter W. Milonni (PhD, Physics, Ï㽶ÊÓƵ, 1974) is a Laboratory Fellow (ret.) of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a Professor of Physics (Research) at the Ï㽶ÊÓƵ. He was previously a Professor of Physics at the University of Arkansas, a Senior Staff Engineer at the Perkin-Elmer Corporation, and a Research Physicist and Project Officer at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory. His research interests include fundamental aspects of quantum optics and electrodynamics. Among his publications are Laser Physics (with J.H. Eberly, Wiley, 2010); The Quantum Vacuum. An Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics(Academic Press, 1994; Elsevier, 2000), and An Introduction to Quantum Optics and Quantum Fluctuations (Oxford University Press, 2019).