Large two-atom two-photon vacuum Rabi oscillations in a high-quality cavity

Abstract

We predict a large cooperative effect involving two-atom two-photon vacuum Rabi oscillations in a high-quality cavity. The two-photon emission occurs as a result of simultaneous deexcitation of both atoms with two-photon resonance condition ω₁+ω₂≈ω_a+ω_b, where ω₁,ω₂ are the atomic transition frequencies and ω_a,ω_b are the frequencies of the emitted photons. The actual resonance condition depends on the vacuum Rabi couplings. The effect can be realized either with identical atoms in a bimodal cavity or with nonidentical atoms in a single-mode cavity.