Radiative corrections in laser-dressed atoms: formalism and applications

The dressing of atomic states in a strong laser field modifies the structure of the incoherently scattered fraction of the laser intensity, which is described to a good approximation by the Mollow spectrum. The incoherent spectrum is generated by the fluctuations of the atomic dipole moment about its expectation value, and the positions of the peaks are approximately given by the energy differences between the dressed atomic energy levels. In this paper, we investigate radiative corrections received by the dressed states. Our calculations are motivated by the quest to understand in detail the interplay of a bound electron dressed by the highly populated laser mode and its interaction with the vacuum modes. Alternatively, this may be seen as an electron experiencing modified stimulated and spontaneous radiative corrections in a vacuum tailored by the laser field. We obtain dressed self-energy shifts that depend on the Rabi flopping frequency (and in turn on the laser intensity) and on the detuning of the laser field relative to the atomic resonance frequency. We find that the dressed radiative corrections differ in a nontrivial manner from the radiative shifts of the 'bare' atomic states. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.