Bare-state theory of laser instabilities and resonance fluorescence (A)

S. Ya. Kilin, Vyacheslav Shatokhin

David A. Holm, Murray Sargent

M. Sargent, F. De Martini, Muhammad Suhail Zubairy

We present the first reported fully quantum-mechanical theory of laser/optical-bistability instabilities that shows how cavity side modes grow from spontaneous emission. Because of three-wave mixing, a two-peaked spontaneous-emission spectrum is obtained in contrast to the three-peaked spectrum of resonance fluorescence. The theory is a multimode extension of Scully-Lamb theory that shows how population pulsations, combination tones, mode locking, and phase conjugation occur with quantum-mechanical fields.

G. S. Agarwal, Ragini Saxena

Murray Sargent, Muhammad Suhail Zubairy, F. DeMartini

David A. Holm, Murray Sargent

Our quantum theory of multiwave mixing1 treats the interactions between one or two classical pump fields with one or two quantized fields in two-level media. It unifies a number of areas of quantum optics, such as resonance fluorescence, saturation spectroscopy, laser instabilities, and phase conjugation. This paper applies the theory to the generation of squeezed states of light.