Propagating single photons from an open cavity: Description from universal quantization

Over the last decades, quantum optics has evolved from high quality factor cavities in the early experiments toward new cavity designs involving leaky modes. Despite very reliable models, in the concepts of cavity quantum electrodynamics, photon leakage is most of the time treated phenomenologically. Here, we take a different approach, and starting from first principles, we define an inside-outside representation which is derived from the original true-mode representation, in which one can determine effective Hamiltonian and Poynting vector. Contrary to the phenomenological model, they allow a full description of a leaking single photon produced in the cavity and propagating in free space. …