ANALYTICAL TREATMENT OF QUANTUM JUMPS IN A SYSTEM OF 2 INTERACTING 2-LEVEL ATOMS

We study analytically the effect of the dipole-dipole interaction on the statistics of the fluorescent radiation emitted from a system of two two-level atoms resonantly driven by a coherent field. For some interatomic separations, an inhibition of fluorescence occurs, which is reminiscent of the recently discussed quantum-jump phenomenon in a single three-level atom. This is reflected in the behaviors of the intensity correlation function, Mandel's Q parameter, and the time-dependent fluorescence spectrum. It is argued that this quantum-jump-like behavior arises from the coupling between the symmetric states and the antisymmetric state caused by the dipole-dipole interaction. © 1990 The American Physical Society.