Fundamental limit to cavity linewidth narrowing with single atoms

Abstract: The electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a quantum interference phenomenon capable of altering the optical response of a medium, turning an initially opaque atomic sample into transparent for a given radiation field (probe field) upon the incidence of a second one (control field). EIT presents several applications, for instance, considering an atomic system trapped inside an optical cavity, its linewidth can be altered by adjusting the control field strength. For the single-atom regime, we show that there is a fundamental limit for narrowing the cavity linewidth, since quantum fluctuations cannot be disregarded in this regime. With this in mind, in this work we also investigate how the linewidth of an optical cavity behaves for different numbers of atoms trapped inside it, which shows a quantum signature in a strong atom-field coupling regime. In addition, we examine how the other system parameters affect the linewidth, such as the Rabi frequency of the control and the probe fields.