Atom-mediated effective interactions between modes of a bimodal cavity

We show a procedure for engineering effective interactions between two modes in a bimodal cavity. Our system consists of one or more two-level atoms, excited by a classical field, interacting with both modes. The two effective Hamiltonians have forms similar to beam-splitter and quadratic beam-splitter interactions. We also demonstrate that the nonlinear Hamiltonian can be used to prepare an entangled coherent state, also known as a multidimensional entangled coherent state, which has been pointed out as an important entanglement resource. We show that the nonlinear interaction parameter can be enhanced considering N independent atoms trapped inside a high-finesse optical cavity.