Effects of quantum interference in spectra of cascade spontaneous emission from multilevel systems

Abstract

A general expression for the spectrum of cascade spontaneous emission from an arbitrary multilevel system is presented. Effects of the quantum interference of photons emitted in different transitions are analyzed. These effects are especially essential when the transition frequencies are close. Several examples are considered: (i) Three-level system; (ii) Harmonic oscillator; (iii) System with equidistant levels and equal rates of the spontaneous decay for all the transitions; (iv) Dicke superradiance model.