Chaos, fractals, and atomic flights in cavities

A semiclassical study is carried out of the nonlinear interaction dynamics between two-level atoms and a standing-wave field in a high-finesse cavity. As a result of atomic movement or wave amplitude modulation, a dynamic local instability occurs in a strongly coupled atom-field system. The appearance of dynamical Hamiltonian chaos, fractals, and Lévy flights is demonstrated for the models of two experimental devices: a (micro)maser with thermal Rydberg atoms and a microlaser with cold atoms. Numerical simulation showed that the manifestations of classical chaos, atomic fractals, and flights can be observed in the appropriate real experiments. Attention is drawn to the prospects provided by work on the atom-field systems in the coupling-modulated high-finesse cavities for further investigation of the quantum-classical correspondence, quantum chaos, and decoherence.