Polarization of Radiation in Multipole Jaynes-Cummings Model

Abstract

We discuss the spatial properties of quantum radiation emitted by a multipole transition in a single atom. The qualitative difference between the representations of plane and spherical waves of photons is examined. In particular, the spatial inhomogeneity of the zero-point oscillations of multipole field is shown. We show that the vacuum noise of polarization is concentrated in a certain vicinity of atoms where it strongly exceeds the level predicted by the representation of the plane waves. A new general polarization matrix is proposed. It is shown that the polarization and its vacuum noise strongly depend on the distance from the source.