3-LEVEL ATOM IN A BROAD-BAND SQUEEZED VACUUM FIELD .2. APPLICATIONS

Using the formalism developed earlier, we treat spontaneous emission from a three-level atom (ladder system) interacting with a broadband squeezed vacuum field. We obtain expressions for the transient and steady-state populations of the atomic levels with the conditions that the atom interacts with either a multimode perfect squeezed vacuum field, or a three-dimensional vacuum field in which the squeezed modes lie within a solid angle over which squeezing is propagated. The results are compared with those obtained for the atom interacting with a thermal field. We show that in the perfect case the first excited state is not populated when the squeezed vacuum field is in a minimum-uncertainty squeezed state. Moreover, the second excited state can have a steady-state population larger than 1/2. These features are completely absent when the atom interacts with the thermal field. In addition, for a low-intensity squeezed vacuum field the population in the second excited state exhibits a linear rather than quadratic dependence on the intensity of the squeezed vacuum field. In the three-dimensional case the presence of unsqueezed modes considerably reduces the effect of squeezing on spontaneous emission. However, a significant reduction in a population of the first excited state and a population larger than 1/2 in the second excited state can be achieved provided the squeezing is propagated over a large solid angle. We also discuss the effect of the two-photon detuning between the double carrier frequency of the squeezing and atomic transition frequency omega-3 on the steady-state atomic population.