Optical Bloch Equations

Equations governing a driven two-state quantum system's dynamics — the workhorse of light–atom interaction theory.

Specifications & Metrics

The optical Bloch equations describe the dynamics of a two-state quantum system interacting with the electromagnetic mode of an optical resonator.
They are analogous to, but not equivalent to, the Bloch equations describing the nuclear magnetic moment in an electromagnetic field.
Standard derivations follow the treatment in Metcalf (1999).