Atom-atom correlations induced by resonant coupling with a laser field

The correlations arising between identical atoms resonantly coupled with the same radiation held are studied within a fully quantized theory. The atoms do not interact with each other and may be widely separated. We study how a modulation of the atom-field parameter of any one atom is transmitted to the others. This exchange of informations between remote systems was predicted in a previous account in the case of two atoms (signal transmission by optical correlations). In this paper, the theory is generalized to more than two atoms in order to model the effect of onlooker atoms. Outlines of experiments enabling investigation of the observability of these correlations and the applications that can be made are presented.