Środowiskowe Seminarium z Informacji i Technologii Kwantowych

The ability to control quantum systems and prepare special superposition and entangled states of light and matter is pursued with many experimental platforms and forms the basis of strategies for quantum computing, communication and metrology. Such, task oriented research may confront us with “blind spots” in our knowledge, i.e., entire research questions that are not treated by our text book formalism, or are dealt with in manners that are not consistent and accurate.

In this talk, I shall discuss one such case: the interaction of a quantum system with a single incident pulse of radiation. While crucial for multiple effects in quantum optics and for the entire concept of flying and stationary qubits, quantum optics textbooks do not provide a formal description of this foundational and elementary interaction process.

I shall present a new (and simple) theoretical formalism that, indeed, accounts for the interaction of travelling pulses of quantized radiation with a local quantum system such as a qubit, a spin or a non-linear resonator. We discuss applications of our theory to quantum pulses of optical, microwave and acoustic excitations and we show examples of relevance to recent experiments.