Uniform atom-cavity interaction in a standing-wave cavity

Atom-field interaction is analyzed when an initially excited two-state atom moves in a vacuum standing-wave cavity. It is shown that, when the atom-cavity detuning equals the Doppler shift due to the motion along the cavity axis, which is much larger than the optimum atom-cavity coupling constant go, clean vacuum Rabi oscillations occur at frequency of go/2 between the initial atom-field state and the state with the atomic transverse momentum offset by ±ℎk. Consequently, the atom can be deflected by the cavity, the direction of which is precisely controlled by the atom-cavity detuning. (author)