Correlations of photoemissions in a multiatomic ensemble driven by a cat-state field

Abstract

A system of two-level noninteracting atoms driven by superposition of two Glauber coherent photonic states (a cat state) is studied. The field state is continuously restored by a source explicitly incorporated into the model. Due to its nature, the cat state changes phase by $\ensuremath{\pi}$ upon stimulated excitation of any atom, a peculiar kind of coherent quantum feedback. That results in correlations between photonic and atomic subsystems. In the limit of a strong field, the ansatz for the system's density matrix is proposed and an approximate analytical solution to the master equation is obtained in the case of a large number of atoms and slow spontaneous emission. Based on this solution, the steady-state second-order correlation function of atomic photoemissions is evaluated and investigated. The results demonstrate a remarkable difference from the case of the classical field (i.e., the field in a Glauber coherent state).