A mere correspondence between the electron statistics and the photon one vanishes in the feedback loop (FBL). It means that the direct photodetection, supplying us with the electron statistics, does not provide us with a wished information about the laser photon statistics. For getting this information we should think up another measurement procedure, and we in the article suggest applying the three-level laser as a auxiliary measuring device. This laser has impressive property, namely, its photon statistics survive information about the initial photon statistics of the laser which excites coherently the three-level medium. Thus, if we choose the laser in the FBL as exciting the three-level laser, then we have an possibility to evaluate its initial photon statistics by means of direct detecting the three-level laser emission. Finally, this approach allows us to conclude the feedback is not capable of creating a regularity in the laser light beam. Contrary, the final photon fluctuations turn out to be always even bigger. The mentioned above feature of the three-level laser takes place only for the strong interaction between the lasers (exciting and excited). It means the initial state of the exciting laser is changed dramatically, so our measurement procedure can not be identified with some non-demolition one.
The statistical and squeezing properties of the cavity light produced by a three-level laser are studied. In the laser, N three-level atoms in an open cavity are coupled with a two-mode vacuum reservoir and are pumped to the top level by means of the electron bombardment. Applying the steady-state solutions of the equations of evolution of the expectation values of the atomic operators and the quantum Langevin equations for the cavity mode operators, we have obtained the global and local photon statistics for single-mode cavity light beams and for two-mode cavity light. It is found that the global mean photon number and the global photon-number variance of the light emitted from the top are greater than those for the light emitted from intermediate level. The cavity lights emitted from the top and intermediate levels can be separately in a chaotic state under certain conditions. However, the two-mode cavity light is in a squeezed state under certain conditions. We have established that the maximum quadrature squeezing of the two-mode cavity light to be about 46% below the coherent-state level. The presence of the vacuum reservoir noise has the effect of increasing the photon-number variance and decreasing the quadrature squeezing of the cavity light but has no effect on the mean photon number. We have shown that the local mean photon number and photon number variance of the cavity light approach the global mean photon number and photon number variance of the cavity light as the frequency interval increases.
We investigate the transient and the steady-state behaviour of the photon statistics of a single-atom laser, consisting of a three-level Λ system, driven by an incoherent external pump field and strongly coupled to a single mode of an optical cavity. For several limiting cases we are able to obtain analytical results. A comparison with standard multi-atom laser theory reveals a surprisingly good agreement down to very small intracavity photon numbers. Under appropriate operating conditions a calculation of the second-order intensity correlation function yields sub-Poissonian statistics as well as strong antibunching induced by the nonlinear dynamics of the atom.
A model of three-level laser, in which the pumping excites the atoms from the lower lasing level, is considered. The statistical properties of the field are calculated using full quantum treatment. It is shown that apart from threshold there is additional critical value of the pump rate, at which the laser field behaves in a phase-transition-like manner: the photon number drops down, the Fano factor has a strong peak, the relative photon number variance grows enormously, and the second-order coherence function jumps to 2, which is typical for thermal light.
A quantum theory of a two-photon laser in a three-level atomic system of the cascade type is presented starting from an original microscopic Hamiltonian. The master equation of the laser operation is derived by using the method of Scully and Lamb [Phys. Rev. A 159, 208 (1967)] for a single-mode laser containing a two-level medium. The photon-number distribution of the laser is studied in detail. The curve of the distribution may have a two-peak structure. One of the peaks located at the origin comes from the single-photon process and reflects the thermal property of the laser, while another comes from the two-photon process and reflects the coherent property of the laser. We cannot find an exact criterion for the threshold of the two-photon laser. The two-photon laser can approximately be considered as a coherent state for certain values of A/C, which can even be much smaller than the threshold for the nonresonant single-mode laser in a two-level system, but it is much larger than the threshold for the resonant one.
The quantum theory of the three-energy-level two-mode laser in which all the levels are being pumped is investigated and the master equation of the laser operation is obtained. It contains two variables,
n1, the photon number of the first mode, and
n2, the photon number of the second mode. There appear four terms in the master equation which represent two-photon processes between the two modes, the absorption of a photon from one mode, and emission of a photon to the other. They are absent in the single-mode case and in the two-mode case with pumping only to the upper level. The master equation can be represented by a diagram of probability in two dimensions which can be extended to infinity, and each arrow of it represents a term on the right-hand side of the master equation. By summing each variable (
n1 or
n2) of the master equation, two equations can be obtained. Each equation contains only one variable, and can be expressed by a diagram of probability flow in one dimension. By considering the correspondence between macroscopic equilibrium and microscopic detailed balance the equations of motion in the steady state are obtained. By introducing a parameter
H, the equation of motion is simplified and a formal solution can be deduced which is dependent on
H. It appears that the parameter
H cannot be fully determined, but some properties of it can be deduced which prove that the introduction of
H is reasonable. The operation characteristics of the laser under different conditions are discussed on the basis of the formal solution: among them are the threshold condition, the condition for one-mode operation, and the change of the photon-statistical distribution. We especially discuss the laser output power curves under two-mode operation above threshold. The curve of one mode, which oscillates first, shows a bending-down phenomenon as the excitation increases when the other mode goes beyond its threshold as demonstrated experimentally by Otsuka. This phenomenon is explained qualitatively and is attributed to the two-photon processes between the two modes.