Spontaneous emission from two atoms interacting with a broadband squeezed vacuum.

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Spontaneous emission from two-level atoms interacting with a squeezed vacuum field is examined, taking account of possible different interatomic separations. It is shown that the steady-state atomic population depends on whether the interatomic separations are comparable to or much smaller than the resonant wavelength. For the extended system the squeezed vacuum introduces a dependence of the atomic population on the interatomic separations. For large interatomic separations the atomic population is identical to that for the thermal field, which is the same for two independent atoms. For small interatomic separations the atomic population is higher than that for the thermal field. This is in contrast to the small-sample model in which the interatomic separation is ignored. In this case the final atomic population in the squeezed vacuum is the same as that for the independent atoms in the squeezed vacuum. Moreover, this population differs from that for the thermal field for which the atomic population is lower than that for the independent atoms. This difference is due to the interatomic correlations whose presence depends on whether the interatomic separation is or is not included. For the extended system the interatomic correlations are induced by the squeezed field and vanish for the thermal field. For the small-sample model, however, the interatomic correlations are induced by the thermal field and the squeezed vacuum changes these correlations in such a way that for the minimum-uncertainty squeezed states these correlations vanish. We also discuss the effect of the interatomic separation on the two-photon transitions and the normalized intensity correlation function in the two-atom system interacting with the squeezed vacuum field.