Laser phase and amplitude fluctuations in the fluorescent Dicke model of interacting atoms

Abstract

A system of N identical superimposed two-level atoms (the Dicke model) interacting with one another and driven by a fluctuating laser field of finite phase and amplitude bandwidths is considered. An exact master equation for the phase-averaged reduced atomic density operator is derived using the theory of multiplicative stochastic processes. It is shown that in the absence of amplitude fluctuations, this equation admits an exact steady-state solution. The exact solution is further used to obtain and analyse the behaviour of the phase-averaged atomic observables and atomic correlation functions in the steady state. The principal results of our analysis is that the phase fluctuations tend to smooth the discontinuities in the observables and the correlation functions found in the non-fluctuating case. Further, including the amplitude fluctuations as well we derive in the high-field limit a Markovian master equation for the density operator averaged over the ensembles of both phase and amplitude fluctuations. The quantum regression theorem is used to derive and discuss exact analytical expressions for the fluorescent spectrum and the second-order intensity correlation function for a system of two interacting atoms.