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Rodolfo Bonifacio

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Rodolfo Bonifacio at INFN, Frascati, June 2012

Rodolfo Bonifacio (Messina, 24 February 1940 – Rome, 1 November 2016)[1] was an Italian physicist, Professor Emeritus at University of Milan, who made significant contributions to laser physics and quantum optics.

Education and career

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Bonifacio studied in Milan, graduating with Piero Caldirola in 1964. He was a postdoctoral student at Harvard University with Roy Glauber. Afterwards he was a professor in Milan. He was also in the Milan section of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN).

He has been a visiting professor and visiting scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Research

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As part of their investigation of the nonlinear interaction of an electromagnetic pulse with an ensemble of two-level atoms, he and Tito Arecchi independently derived the equations known as Maxwell-Bloch equations.[2] In 1970, with Paolo Schwendimann and Fritz Haake, he developed a classical and quantum theory of cooperative spontaneous emission[3] and coined the name superfluorescence.[4] With Luigi Lugiato he later described oscillating superfluorescence, which was confirmed experimentally.[5] In addition, with Lugiato he developed a molecular field theory of optical bistability[6] with a description of photon statistics and they developed an exact theory of optical bistability in a ring resonator with later experimentally confirmed prediction of optical self-pulsing.

In 1982 he described a model of the free electron laser (FEL) with Federico Casagrande and Giulio Casati. They predicted a first-order phase transition to laser operation for critical values of the magnetic wiggler field and electron density[7]

In the 1990s he studied the interaction of cold atomic gases with light[8] and developed the theory of the Collective Atomic Recoil Laser[9] (CARL, 1994), in which both internal atomic states and the movement of atoms play a role (so that he experiences both the theory of conventional lasers and FEL). This has been observed as superradiant Rayleigh scattering[10] (SRyS) in both ordinary cold atomic gases and Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The latter suggested an extension of the CARL model, which also included the atomic recoil during photon emission, which led Bonifacio to investigate a possible new regime of FEL called Quantum FEL (QFEL)[11] in the 2000s, building on the work of Giuliano Preparata at the end of the 2000s 1980s. He saw this as a possible compact source for coherent gamma radiation.

He also dealt with the nature and quantization of time.[12]

In 1987 he received the Albert A. Michelson Medal from the Franklin Institute with Luigi A. Lugiato and in 1994 the Einstein Medal from the Society for Quantum Optics and Quantum Electronics.

An article published in Nature in 2015 with the title Due credit for Maxwell–Bloch equations[13] authored by Brian McNeil[14] suggests that "These coupled equations were not actually derived by Maxwell and Bloch, but instead can be traced back to a little cited (given its significance) publication by Tito Arecchi and Rodolfo Bonifacio".

Bibliography

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  1. ^ "Rodolfo Bonifacio". Physics Today. 6 December 2016. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  2. ^ Arecchi, F.; Bonifacio, R. (1965). "Theory of optical maser amplifiers". IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics. 1 (4): 169–178. Bibcode:1965IJQE....1..169A. doi:10.1109/JQE.1965.1072212. ISSN 0018-9197.
  3. ^ Bonifacio, R.; Gronchi, M. (1 June 1971). "An analytical result about co-operative spontaneous emission". Lettere al Nuovo Cimento (1971–1985). 1 (26): 1105–1108. doi:10.1007/BF02770373. ISSN 1827-613X. S2CID 124354237.
  4. ^ Bonifacio, R.; Lugiato, L. A. (1 May 1975). "Cooperative radiation processes in two-level systems: Superfluorescence". Physical Review A. 11 (5): 1507–1521. Bibcode:1975PhRvA..11.1507B. doi:10.1103/physreva.11.1507. ISSN 0556-2791.
  5. ^ Vrehen, Q. H. F.; Gibbs, H. M. (1982), Bonifacio, Rodolfo (ed.), "Superfluorescence Experiments", Dissipative Systems in Quantum Optics: Resonance Fluorescence, Optical Bistability, Superfluorescence, Topics in Current Physics, vol. 27, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 111–147, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-81717-5_6, ISBN 978-3-642-81717-5, retrieved 16 October 2023
  6. ^ Bonifacio, R.; Lugiato, L. A. (1 September 1978). "Optical bistability and cooperative effects in resonance fluorescence". Physical Review A. 18 (3): 1129–1144. Bibcode:1978PhRvA..18.1129B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.18.1129.
  7. ^ Bonifacio, R.; Casagrande, F.; Casati, G. (1 January 1982). "Cooperative and chaotic transition of a free electron laser Hamiltonian model". Optics Communications. 40 (3): 219–223. Bibcode:1982OptCo..40..219B. doi:10.1016/0030-4018(82)90265-6. ISSN 0030-4018.
  8. ^ Robb, G. R. M.; Piovella, N.; Ferraro, A.; Bonifacio, R.; Courteille, Ph. W.; Zimmermann, C. (27 April 2004). "Collective atomic recoil lasing including friction and diffusion effects". Physical Review A. 69 (4): 041403. arXiv:quant-ph/0311012. Bibcode:2004PhRvA..69d1403R. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.69.041403. S2CID 56065335.
  9. ^ Bonifacio, R.; De Salvo, L. (1 March 1994). "Collective atomic recoil laser (CARL) optical gain without inversion by collective atomic recoil and self-bunching of two-level atoms". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment. 341 (1): 360–362. Bibcode:1994NIMPA.341..360B. doi:10.1016/0168-9002(94)90382-4. ISSN 0168-9002.
  10. ^ Bonifacio, R.; Cataliotti, F. S.; Cola, M.; Fallani, L.; Fort, C.; Piovella, N.; Inguscio, M. (March 2004). "Superradiant light scattering from a moving Bose-Einstein condensate". Optics Communications. 233 (1–3): 155–160. arXiv:cond-mat/0306500. Bibcode:2004OptCo.233..155B. doi:10.1016/j.optcom.2004.01.027. S2CID 34661014.
  11. ^ Robb, G. R. M.; Bonifacio, R. (1 July 2012). "Coherent and spontaneous emission in the quantum free electron laser". Physics of Plasmas. 19 (7). Bibcode:2012PhPl...19g3101R. doi:10.1063/1.4729337. ISSN 1070-664X.
  12. ^ What is Time? – Rodolfo Bonifacio, retrieved 28 November 2023 General Seminar – Scientific Event 15 June 2016, Auditorium B. Touschek INFN – Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati
  13. ^ McNeil, Brian (2015). "Due credit for Maxwell–Bloch equations". Nature. 9 (4): 207. Bibcode:2015NaPho...9..207M. doi:10.1038/nphoton.2015.44. ISSN 1749-4885.
  14. ^ "Dr Brian McNeil | University of Strathclyde". www.strath.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
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