Motional carrier transition 2026-10-20
A motional carrier transition changes an atom's internal state without changing its oscillator quantum number. Its matrix element from the motional ground state contains the factor . A first blue sideband is smaller in amplitude by and changes the motional energy by one trap quantum. Conditional energy changes must be distinguished from averages over all motional outcomes.
Write , with Rabi frequency , for the internal coupling and use normalized oscillator states. The motional carrier transition matrix element is the Gaussian characteristic function,In the Lamb-Dicke regime, . The diagonal internal-energy terms cannot connect to .
If the two unnormalized printed functions are used verbatim, the literal ground-state integral is instead . This is not a matrix element between normalized eigenstates of the stated trap; even its zero-recoil value is incorrectly .