Cooperative spontaneous emission from a system of N three-level atoms in lambda and ladder configurations of the levels immersed in a high-Q two-mode cavity, when only one atom is initially excited to its highest level, is solved exactly in a completely quantised treatment.
N two-level "atoms" are considered in interaction with a single-mode resonant electromagnetic field. The exact solution is given nonrelativistically for all times for the case of spontaneous emission, when only one atom is initially excited. The solution is given for the general case of the N atoms in inequivalent mode positions.
We consider cooperative spontaneous emission by an assembly of N two-level atoms immersed in a high-Q single-mode cavity, when s (s\ensuremath{\ll}N) atoms are initially excited. The atoms are noninteracting with each other except via the action of the electromagnetic field. The eigenvalues of the system and the time development of the mean energy of the atomic subsystem are presented in the form of power series in the parameter \ensuremath{\epsilon}=(N-s/2+1/2${)}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}1}$ using the SU(2)-group-representation technique.