Spontaneous emission of two interacting atoms near an interface

Jürgen Schiefele, Carsten Henkel

K. C. Liu

Vladimír Bužek

Dehua Wang

The spontaneous emission rate of two interacting excited atoms near a dielectric interface is studied using the photon closed-orbit theory and the dipole image method. The total emission rate of one atom during the emission process is calculated as a function of the distance between the atom and the interface. The results suggest that the spontaneous emission rate depends not only on the atomic-interface distances, but also on the orientation of the two atomic dipoles and the initial distance between the two atoms. The oscillation in the spontaneous emission rate is caused by the interference between the outgoing electromagnetic wave emitted from one atom and other waves arriving at this atom after traveling along various classical orbits. Each peak in the Fourier transformed spontaneous emission rate corresponds with one action of photon classical orbit.

Fu-He Wang, Yanping Jin, Ben–Yuan Gu +3 more

The spontaneous emission rate of an atom in a dielectric system with a single interface is calculated using quantum electrodynamics and analyzed using ideas from closed-orbit theory. The spontaneous emission rate is shown to exhibit a damping oscillation as the atomic distance from the interface is varied. The calculated frequency of the oscillation matches very well with the prediction from closed-orbit theory. This study provides a different perspective on the spontaneous emission of atoms in the presence of environments.

H. J. Carmichael