Alternative Scheme for Generation of Atomic Schroedinger Cat States and Entangled Coherent States in an Optical Cavity

We propose an alternative scheme for generation of atomic Schroedinger cat states in an optical cavity. In the scheme the atoms are always populated in the two ground states and the cavity remains in the vacuum state. Therefore, the scheme is insensitive to the atomic spontaneous emission and cavity decay. The scheme may be generalized to the deterministic generation of entangled coherent states for two atomic samples. In contrast with the previously proposed schemes of [Commun. Theor. Phys. 40 (2003) 103 and Chin. Phys. B 18 (2009) 1045], the required interaction time in our scheme is greatly shortened and thus the decoherence can be effectively suppressed. (electromagnetism, optics, acoustics, heat transfer, classical mechanics, and fluid dynamics)