Gravitational-Wave Modulation of Atomic Spontaneous Emission: Electrodynamical Theory, Quadrupolar Redistribution, and Rydberg Cavity Metrology
Abstract
Studying Gravitational Waves (GWs) provide a unique probe of the interplay between quantum matter and the dynamics of spacetime. We develop a QED framework for spontaneous emission in the presence of a weak classical GW by quantizing the electromagnetic field in a linearized gravitational background. We show that a passing GW dynamically phase-modulates vacuum electromagnetic modes, dressing photon states into a Floquet ladder of sidebands separated by the GW frequency. While the total spontaneous decay rate remains unchanged to first order in the GW strain, the emission pattern develops a characteristic spin-2 quadrupolar angular redistribution modulated with the GW phase. For finite interaction times, interference between the carrier and Floquet sidebands generates phase-dependent spectral asymmetries in the transient emission spectrum. To explore experimental observability, we formulate a cavity-QED master equation description and propose a differential cross-cavity detection protocol employing Rydberg ensembles or highly charged ions. These results establish cavity QED as a promising platform for exploring quantum electrodynamics in dynamical spacetime and for high-frequency gravitational-wave detection.
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BibTeX
@misc{rahvar2026gravitationalwave,
title = {{Gravitational-Wave Modulation of Atomic Spontaneous Emission: Electrodynamical Theory, Quadrupolar Redistribution, and Rydberg Cavity Metrology}},
author = {Sohrab Rahvar},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.32905},
eprint = {2609.32905},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.32905},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Gravitational-Wave Modulation of Atomic Spontaneous Emission: Electrodynamical Theory, Quadrupolar Redistribution, and Rydberg Cavity Metrology
AU - Sohrab Rahvar
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/26
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.32905
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.32905
AB - Studying Gravitational Waves (GWs) provide a unique probe of the interplay between quantum matter and the dynamics of spacetime. We develop a QED framework for spontaneous emission in the presence of a weak classical GW by quantizing the electromagnetic field in a linearized gravitational background. We show that a passing GW dynamically phase-modulates vacuum electromagnetic modes, dressing photon states into a Floquet ladder of sidebands separated by the GW frequency. While the total spontaneous decay rate remains unchanged to first order in the GW strain, the emission pattern develops a characteristic spin-2 quadrupolar angular redistribution modulated with the GW phase. For finite interaction times, interference between the carrier and Floquet sidebands generates phase-dependent spectral asymmetries in the transient emission spectrum. To explore experimental observability, we formulate a cavity-QED master equation description and propose a differential cross-cavity detection protocol employing Rydberg ensembles or highly charged ions. These results establish cavity QED as a promising platform for exploring quantum electrodynamics in dynamical spacetime and for high-frequency gravitational-wave detection.
ER -