The “Actual” versus “Virtual” Experiments on Quantum Collapse and Revival

Abstract

We modeled an atomic beam micromaser experiment [G. Rempe et al.: Phys. Rev. Lett. 58 (1987) 353] as well as a more recently reported cavity-QED experiment of a similar type [M. Brune et al.: Phys. Rev. Lett. 76 (1996) 1800] using the theory of quantum trajectories in order to see to what degree agreement between theory and experiment can be achieved. We compared our computations with the analysis based upon a “quantum theory of micromaser” [P. Filipowicz et al.: Phys. Rev. A 34 (1986) 3077] for the purpose of reliability check. We found rather nonnegligible differences between the results of theories and of experiments.