RESONANCE RADIATION FROM INTERACTING ATOMS

The frequency distribution of resonant radiation emitted by a system of two identical interacting atoms is calculated. The separation between the atoms is assumed to be much larger than the size of their charge distributions. Initially one atom is excited while the second one is in the ground state. The two atoms are coupled through the radiation field and the electrostatic interaction. For not too large internudear separations the line shape of the emitted radiation exhibits two distinct peaks, and the general features are identical with the result obtained from resonance fluorescence scattering. In the decay process, however, there is equal probability of scattering through the symmetric and antisymmetric states, and thus the peak heights of the emitted radiation are different from the ones in the resonance fluorescent case. For large internuclear separations the two peaks merge into the one characteristic of the line shape of a single isolated atom.