Controlling spontaneous emission in a driven M-type atom by low-frequency coherence

We have studied the spontaneous emission behaviour in a five-level M-type atom driven by two optical fields of high frequencies and a microwave field of low-frequency. In absence of non-orthogonal decaying pathways, due to microwave field induced low-frequency coherence, the present model produces the emission spectrum resembling that of a three-level system controlled by the effect of vacuum induced decay-interference. For particular sets of values of the Rabi frequencies of the resonant coherent fields, the system exhibits quantum interference induced switching effect. By using this model, we have shown that the phenomenon of narrowing can be induced in the emission peaks without any detuning and phase control of the coherent fields. With the increase in the value of the Rabi frequency of the microwave field, this feature will be accompanied by the peak-compression and -repulsion effect. When the coherent fields are far from resonance, the appearance of the single-photon and the two-photon peaks in the emission spectrum can be easily controlled by changing the value of the Rabi frequency of the microwave field. We have shown the appearance of multiple dark regions in the emission line shape for equal as well as unequal decay rates of two emission pathways. Other interesting phenomena like elimination, enhancement and suppression of spectral line are also explored in various resonant and non-resonant cases. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.