The problem of the interaction of a beam of radiation in a coherent state and an atomic system is investigated. A complete set of states of the field is introduced, called displaced stationary states, which are found to be particularly convenient in dealing with first- and second-order processes such as dispersion, Raman scattering, single and double emission, and absorption. In this formalism the resonant conditions for the occurrence of processes which have their counterpart in ordinary first- and second-order perturbation theory (where the state of the field is assumed to be a stationary state) are found in a natural way. In addition, a description is indicated of physical situations which are peculiar to coherent field dynamics and thus have no such counterpart. The coherence properties of the displaced stationary states are analyzed. It is shown under which experimental conditions (such as appropriate photon correlation methods) it would appear to be possible to verify whether the displaced stationary states indeed provide a good description of the underlying dynamics. The formalism can readily be extended to higher-order processes.
The problem of the interaction of a beam of radiation in a coherent state and an atomic system is investigated. A complete set of states of the field is introduced, called displaced stationary states, which are found to be particularly convenient in dealing with first- and second-order processes such as dispersion, Raman scattering, single and double emission, and absorption. In this formalism the resonant conditions for the occurrence of processes which have their counterpart in ordinary first- and second-order perturbation theory (where the state of the field is assumed to be a stationary state) are found in a natural way. In addition, a description is indicated of physical situations which are peculiar to coherent field dynamics and thus have no such counterpart. The coherence properties of the displaced stationary states are analyzed. It is shown under which experimental conditions (such as appropriate photon correlation methods) it would appear to be possible to verify whether the displaced stationary states indeed provide a good description of the underlying dynamics. The formalism can readily be extended to higher-order processes.
An attempt is made to present a consistent detailed theory of optical phenomena, based on the suggestion recently made by the author in collaboration with Bohr and Kramers. This suggestion is that atoms are radiating or absorbing continuously, during their stationary states, and that transitions influence radiation only in terminating the radiation characteristic of the old state, and substituting that of the new. The atoms, on the other hand, are supposed not to change their energy while radiating, but to change it discontinuously on transition. This necessitates giving up the detailed application of the conservation of energy in interaction between atoms and radiation. In the present paper, an additional suggestion is made, namely that resonance radiation is to be identified with the radiation carried out by the spherical wavelets which, by their interference with the external field, also produce absorption. This is practically a return to the classical picture of resonance radiation. Statement of the theory consists formally of two parts: the description of the behavior of atoms, and of radiation, when the two interact. The first involves the statement of the probabilities of transition of atoms, and is taken without change from Einstein. The probability of interruption of coherent vibrations is also discussed. The second requires the specification of the fields emitted by atoms in any steady state under the influence of any external field. These consist of spherical wavelets of the frequencies of the various quantum lines which the atom can emit or absorb in the stationary state in which it is. For emission frequencies, wavelets are emitted even in the absence of an external field; for absorption frequencies, external fields induce wavelets, similar to the wavelets of linearly bound electrons in electron theory, which on the one hand interfere with the external field to produce the phenomena of dispersion, etc., and on the other carry out the resonance radiation in all directions. Detailed descriptions of these fields are given. In a discussion of the theory, it is first shown that the assumptions which have been made about the field satisfy the correspondence principle, in that for large quantum numbers the field aproaches that which would be emitted classically on account of the interaction of an external field and a multiply periodic atom. On the other hand, it is shown that the field has a character essentially like that of classical electron theory, which is known to be in general agreement with experiments. Next, the energy and momentum relations at interaction of atoms and light are investigated, and it is shown that, although these quantities are not precisely conserved, still the assumptions as to atomic and radiation processes have been so made that they are conserved on an average over a great number of atomic processes. Finally the spectral resolution of emitted and absorbed radiation is considered; the theory gives a minimum breadth for the lines, depending on the finite length of wave trains resulting from the finite life in stationary states, and it is shown that Kirchhoff's law is obeyed, the emission and absorption lines being of the same breadth. By way of illustration, specific application of the theory is made to the simple examples of emission of light by bombardment of electrons at the resonance potential, resonance radiation, its quenching by presence of foreign gases, absorption, scattering, and disperison.
Methods are developed for discussing the photon statistics of arbitrary fields in fully quantum-mechanical terms. In order to keep the classical limit of quantum electrodynamics plainly in view, extensive use is made of the coherent states of the field. These states, which reduce the field correlation functions to factorized forms, are shown to offer a convenient basis for the description of fields of all types. Although they are not orthogonal to one another, the coherent states form a complete set. It is shown that any quantum state of the field may be expanded in terms of them in a unique way. Expansions are also developed for arbitrary operators in terms of products of the coherent state vectors. These expansions are discussed as a general method of representing the density operator for the field. A particular form is exhibited for the density operator which makes it possible to carry out many quantum-mechanical calculations by methods resembling those of classical theory. This representation permits clear insights into the essential distinction between the quantum and classical descriptions of the field. It leads, in addition, to a simple formulation of a superposition law for photon fields. Detailed discussions are given of the incoherent fields which are generated by superposing the outputs of many stationary sources. These fields are all shown to have intimately related properties, some of which have been known for the particular case of blackbody radiation.
A general theory of the intermediate state interaction in the second order optical process is developed by extending the stochastic theory of line shape. We introduce the stochastic models of the intermediate state interaction and discuss the general features of the secondary emission spectrum, focusing particular attention on how the correlation between the incident and the scattered photons are affected by the intermediate state interaction. It is clarified how the spectral features or the relative weights among the various components of the second order optical process are determined by a few physical parameters; the radiative damping rate and the modulation amplitude and rate. Further we discuss the relationships between the first and the second order optical processes.
A non-relativistic quantum theory of matter-photon interaction is formulated, within the framework of the dipole approximation, by employing a canonical transformation to diago nalize the A' term plus the free photon Hamiltonian. The matter-photon interaction is there by expressed rigorously in a renormalized A·p form. Using this form for the Dicke model of two-level atoms interacting with a single-mode radiation field, we examine a possibility of the occurrence of stationary coherent states which could arise for a photon and atomic polarization as the ground state of the system, deducing a condition for such coherent states. The condition, expressed as an inequality which imposes a stable nontrivial Bloch angle of the uniform atomic polarization, is identical with that for the occurrence of a second order phase transition, and indicates that the non-existence of a second order phase transition pointed out by Rza2ewski et al. io; in fact a consequence of the present treatment of the A' term renormalization. However, a fulfillment of the condition is recovered, if exchange type atom-atom interaction is taken into account in the matter system. We also present a method to construct an effective Hamiltonian of atom-atom interaction which is equivalent to the above Dicke model in the thermodynamic limit.
In this paper we attempt to unify the theoretical treatment of a variety of cooperative interaction phenomena occurring in resonantly interacting radiation-matter systems. The system consists of a multimode optical field interacting with N resonant atoms in a region of large spatial extent. The field and atoms may or may not be coupled to reservoirs. We derive a set of coupled master equations for the reduced matter and radiation density operators of the composite system in the first Born approximation, using a method due to Bogoliubov. These equations describe within a single framework phenomena involving superradiant emission and coherent propagation. In the first place, our theory generalizes existing formulations of the superradiance problem by treating the radiation field as part of the dynamical system rather than as a reservoir. Hence, our equations describe stimulated interaction effects, which are entirely absent in the usual superradiance master equations. Moreover, our equations contain terms describing the self-consistent interaction of an average field with a set of polarizable atoms, as in the coupled Bloch and Maxwell equations of the theory of coherent pulse propagation, and enable us to describe fluctuations, arising from incoherent emission, about the average behavior described by the Bloch-Maxwell theory. We solve formally the dynamical equation for the radiation density operator and obtain a displaced multivariate Gaussian distribution centered on the solution of the Maxwell wave equation, which has as parameters the first and second moments of the matter density operator. Then we derive and discuss the field and atomic-moment equations, both in the wave-number and position representations. The moment equations enable us to show the relationship between descriptions of superradiant damping based on the Bloch equations and those based on the existence of correlated atomic states, including both as special cases. We introduce reduced matter moments, which allow us to separate incoherent- and coherent-emission effects and enable us to discuss the question of the closure of the moment equations. Then we consider cases where the behavior of the atomic system is dominated by a strong coherent pump wave or where the atoms are in a symmetric correlated state and show how the slowly-varying-envelope approximation simplifies the radiation-moment equations in these two cases. In the former case, we obtain an approximate theory which consists, in lowest order, of the Bloch-Maxwell equations with radiative-damping terms, plus an equation describing the time development of the correlation function for field fluctuations. Returning to our general formalism, we relate the usual parameters of the theory of radiative decay and of resonant interactions to the more general quantities appearing in our spatial analysis. Finally, we discuss the importance of the stimulated-emission terms appearing in our theory and describe several extensions, including the introduction of inhomogeneous broadening.
We have calculated the excitation spectra of a single electron in the excited state of a three-level atom interacting with two off-resonant laser fields at high intensities. We have also considered the process where one laser photon is absorbed by the ground state, as well as a Raman-type process where one photon of one of the laser fields is emitted while another photon of the other laser field is absorbed simultaneously by the second excited state of the atom. The net excitation spectra of the three processes in question consist of two peaks having always positive intensities indicating induced absorption (attenuation) and a third peak which has positive, zero and negative intensities for values of the Rabi frequencies , and , respectively. When , the Raman-type process prevails over the other two, and the resulting peak has a negative intensity indicating that significant amplification is likely to occur at the corresponding frequency.