Quantum and Classical Electromagnetic Interaction with Matter

Harvard FAS

The course covers the interaction of quantized atoms with classical and quantized electromagnetic fields, introducing basic concepts such as coherent Rabi transitions versus rate-equation dynamics, stimulated and spontaneous transitions, and energy and phase relaxations. These topics will be studied using standard quantum-dynamics tools, together with methods such as Bloch, Feynman-Bloch, and Jaynes-Cummings formalisms. These concepts and methods will then be used to study a range of…