Upper bound on the duration of quantum jumps

1 Dec 2018 · Mathias A. Seidler, Ricardo Gutiérrez-Jáuregui, Alessandro Cerè, Rocío Jáuregui, Christian Kurtsiefer ·

We present a method to estimate the time scale of quantum jumps from the time correlation of photon pairs generated from a cascade decay in an atomic system, and realize it experimentally in a cold cloud of 87Rb. Taking into account the photodetector response, we find an upper bound for the duration of a quantum jump of 21+/-11 ps.