Approaches to the Treatment of Spontaneous-Emission

Albert Rose

W. L. Lama, L. Mandeļ

Geert L. J. A. Rikken

Benjamin Fain

The intensity of spontaneous emission by atoms or molecules in a stationary state in contact with a thermal bath at temperature T, is derived up to the fourth-order approximation in electronic charge. The perturbative treatment of the intensity of the stationary spontaneous emission is shown to be valid only if the relaxation rate is much larger than w, the rate of spontaneous emission. A specific model gives the stationary spontaneous emission intensity for all values of and w.

P. L. Knight

A number of interpretations of the origins of spontaneous emission are examined. In particular, the idea of quantum jumps in the recorded fluorescence from excited atoms and their theoretical treatment is reviewed using recent Monte-Carlo simulation approaches to spontaneous emission. These are illustrated for pure spontaneous emission and for the telegraphic quantum jump signal in the fluorescence from three-level atoms.

L. F. Mollenauer, J. P. Gordon