A scheme for the preparation of Fock states and general superposition states of the electromagnetic field in a cavity is studied in detail. The scheme uses adiabatic passage in a strongly coupled atom-cavity system to ‘‘map’’ atomic ground-state Zeeman coherence onto the cavity-mode field. We model photon-counting and homodyne measurements of the field exiting the cavity and demonstrate the possibility of generating and detecting highly nonclassical states of the field parameter values close to currently realizable experimental values. The adiabatic passage process is also reversible, enabling cavity-mode fields to be mapped onto atomic ground-state Zeeman coherence. Application of this property to the measurement of cavity fields is discussed, with particular consideration given to a possible scheme for quantum measurements of the intracavity photon number.

• Received 20 April 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.51.1578