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Recent experiments on quantum behavior in microfabricated solid-state systems suggest tantalizing connections to quantum optics. Several of these experiments address the prototypical problem of cavity quantum electrodynamics: a two-level system coupled to a quantum harmonic oscillator. Such devices may allow the exploration of parameter regimes outside the near-resonance and weak-coupling assumptions of the ubiquitous rotating-wave approximation ͑RWA͒, necessitating other theoretical approaches. One such approach is an adiabatic approximation in the limit that the oscillator frequency is much larger than the characteristic frequency of the two-level system. A derivation of the approximation is presented, together with a discussion of its applicability in a system consisting of a Cooper-pair box coupled to a nanomechanical resonator. Within this approximation the time evolution of the two-level-system occupation probability is calculated using both thermal-and coherent-state initial conditions for the oscillator, focusing particularly on collapse and revival phenomena. For thermal-state initial conditions parameter regimes are found in which collapse and revival regions may be clearly distinguished, unlike the erratic evolution of the thermal-state RWA model. Coherentstate initial conditions lead to complex behavior, which exhibits sensitive dependence on the coupling strength and the initial amplitude of the oscillator state. One feature of the regime considered here is that closed-form evaluation of the time evolution may be carried out in the weak-coupling limit, which provides insight into the differences between the thermal-and coherent-state models. Finally, potential experimental observations in solid-state systems, particularly the Cooper-pair box-nanomechanical resonator system, are discussed and found to be promising.

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An asymptotic result is derived for the Jaynes-Cummings model of a two-level atom interacting with a quantized single-mode field, which is valid when the field is initially in a coherent state with a large average photon number. It is shown that for certain initial atomic states the joint atom-field wave function factors into an atomic and a field part throughout the interaction, so that each system remains separately in a pure state. The atomic part of the wave function displays a crossing of trajectories in the atom Hilbert space that leads to a unique state for the atom, independent of its initial state, at a specific time to (equal to half the revival time). The field part of the wave function resembles a crescent squeezed state.The well-known collapses and revivals are investigated from this perspective. The collapse appears to be associated with a "measurement" of the initial state of the atom with the field as the measuring apparatus. The measurement is not complete for finite average photon number: the system is instead left in a coherent superposition of macroscopically distinct states. At the half-revival time to this superposition of states is entirely in the field part of the state vector, so that the (pure) state of the field at that time is of the form sometimes referred to as a "Schrodinger cat. " The revivals of the population inversion are seen to be entirely due to the fact that the linear superposition of the two macroscopically distinct field states is coherent (i.e. , a pure state), as opposed to an incoherent mixture.