Experimental investigation of the statistical distribution of single atoms in cavity quantum electrodynamics

The Hanbury Brown–Twiss experiment for a beam of photons or atoms can be performed using counting experiments. We present the statistical distribution of single ¹³³Cs atoms detected by a high finesse microcavity, which acts as a point-like single-atom counter. The distribution of the arrival times of the atoms and the correlation between the atoms was obtained based on the full counting statistics of the beam emitted from the cavity. The bunching behavior of the thermal atomic beams is clearly observable using this type of atom–cavity system. The correlation between the cesium atoms depends on the temperature of the atom cloud, and the corresponding parameters may be found by fitting an experimentally measured curve using the theory of multimode thermal light. (letter)