Photon antibunching and squeezing in resonance fluorescence of two interacting atoms

Abstract

The equal-time intensity correlation function and variances of the in-phase and out-of-phase components of the electric field radiated by a system of two interacting atoms in the process of resonance fluorescence are calculated analytically for arbitrary values of the field strength, interatomic interaction, and detuning and are illustrated graphically. It is shown that not only photon antibuching but also squeezing can occur in two-atom resonance fluorescence. The influence of dipole-dipole interaction between the atoms on both nonclassical effects is discussed. It is shown that a considerable amount of photon antibunching and squeezing can be obtained for finite detuning of the laser frequency from atomic resonance, especially when the detuning and dipole-dipole interaction parameters cancel out mutually. The maximum value of squeezing for interacting atoms is shown to be less, however, than that for noninteracting atoms. Very strong dipole-dipole interaction reduces the squeezing effect to zero.