Coherence effects in a driven micromaser pumped by polarized atoms
Federico Casagrande, ALFREDO LULLI · Journal of Optics B Quantum and Semiclassical Optics · 2002
We describe the dynamics of a micromaser pumped by atoms in superposition states and driven by a resonant coherent field. By a quantum jump approach to the master equation solution, we show how the coherences excited in the cavity mode affect the nonclassical steady-state behaviour of the system, in a way that depends on the relative phase between the polarized atoms and the driving field. Both the mean photon number and the phase of the cavity field can be controlled via the atomic transit time and pump rate, or the driving field intensity. The predicted coherence and phase competition effects can show up in the statistics of the populations of outgoing atoms.