Nonclassical Interference Effects In The Radiation From Coherently Driven Uncorrelated Atoms

Abstract

We demonstrate the existence of new nonclassical correlations in the radiation of two atoms, which are coherently driven by a continuous laser source. The photon-photon-correlations of the fluorescence light show a spatial interferene pattern not present in a classical treatment. A feature of the new phenomenon is, that bunched and antibunched light is emitted in different spatial directions. The calculations are performed analytically. It is pointed out, that the correlations are induced by state reduction due to the measurement process when the detection of the photons does not distinguish between the atoms. It is interesting to note, that the phenomena show up even without any interatomic interaction.