ABSTRACT
Quantum entanglement between the degrees of freedom encountered in the classical world is challenging to observe due to the surrounding environment. To elucidate this issue, we investigate the entanglement generated over ultrafast timescales in a bipartite quantum system comprising two massive particles: a free-moving photoelectron, which expands to a mesoscopic length scale, and a light-dressed atomic ion, which represents a hybrid state of light and matter. Although the photoelectron spectra are measured classically, the entanglement allows us to reveal information about the dressed-state dynamics of the ion and the femtosecond extreme ultraviolet pulses delivered by a seeded free-electron laser. The observed generation of entanglement is interpreted using the time-dependent von Neumann entropy. Our results unveil the potential for using short-wavelength coherent light pulses from free-electron lasers to generate entangled photoelectron and ion systems for studying spooky action at a distance.
ABSTRACT
Rabi oscillations are periodic modulations of populations in two-level systems interacting with a time-varying field1. They are ubiquitous in physics with applications in different areas such as photonics2, nano-electronics3, electron microscopy4 and quantum information5. While the theory developed by Rabi was intended for fermions in gyrating magnetic fields, Autler and Townes realized that it could also be used to describe coherent light-matter interactions within the rotating-wave approximation6. Although intense nanometre-wavelength light sources have been available for more than a decade7-9, Rabi dynamics at such short wavelengths has not been directly observed. Here we show that femtosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulses from a seeded free-electron laser10 can drive Rabi dynamics between the ground state and an excited state in helium atoms. The measured photoelectron signal reveals an Autler-Townes doublet and an avoided crossing, phenomena that are both fundamental to coherent atom-field interactions11. Using an analytical model derived from perturbation theory on top of the Rabi model, we find that the ultrafast build-up of the doublet structure carries the signature of a quantum interference effect between resonant and non-resonant photoionization pathways. Given the recent availability of intense attosecond12 and few-femtosecond13 extreme-ultraviolet pulses, our results unfold opportunities to carry out ultrafast manipulation of coherent processes at short wavelengths using free-electron lasers.
