Field Matter Coupling and Two-Level Systems

Abstract

With this chapter we start the applications part of this book by considering the interaction between lasers and matter. Lasers have already been discussed in Chap. 1. Therefore, we start immediately with the theoretical description of the coupling of a given classical light field, realized e.g. by a laser, to a quantum mechanical system.1 Due to their simplicity and the fact that they serve as paradigms for many phenomena observed in more complex systems, some analytically solvable two-level systems will be discussed in the remainder of this chapter.