A Comparison of Quantum and Semiclassical Rabi Models Near Multiphoton Resonances in the Presence of Parametric Modulation

We compare the semiclassical and quantum predictions for the unitary dynamics of a two-level atom interacting with a single-mode electromagnetic field under parametric modulation of the atomic parameters in the regime of multiphoton atom–field resonances. We derive approximate analytic solutions for the semiclassical Rabi model when the atomic transition frequency and the atom–field coupling strength undergo harmonic external modulations. These solutions are compared to the predictions of the quantum Rabi model, which we solve numerically for an initial coherent state with a large average photon number (on the order of 104), in the regime of three-photon resonance. We show that, for short enough times and sufficiently intense coherent states, the semiclassical dynamics agrees quite well with the quantum dynamics, although it inevitably fails at longer times due to the absence of collapse–revival behavior. Furthermore, we describe how the field state evolves throughout the interaction, presenting numerical results for the average photon number, entropies (related to atom–field entanglement), and other quantities characterizing the photon number statistics of the electromagnetic field.