Abstract

The usual description of interference effects (level crossing, Hanle effect, etc.) in the scope of the laser spectroscopy is based upon probability calculations of the associated transitions from one atomic exited state to another. This technique is well developed and investigated.¹However, the structure of scattered fields spreading is investigated much less and the fields themselves are in fact treated as classic ones. Recently in Ref. ²the total quantum description of one of such interference effect—Hanle effect for transition J= 0 → J= 1 in the field of monochromatic wave of arbitrary intensity was presented. It was shown that the scattered field is described by the correlators of type: $〈a_{\text{o}}^{+}{a}_{{\sigma }^{\text{'}}}〉$where$a_{\sigma }^{+}$and a_σ—photon creation and annihilation operators for σ-polarization (left "+" or right "−"). The case σ= σ′ corresponds to photon numbers n_σ, and σ≠ σ′ is essential for an interference effects description.

© 1994 IEEE