Abstract

It has been predicted that when fluorescent photons emitted from an atom in the process of resonance fluorescence interfere with a portion of the coherent driving field, the visibility of the resulting interference exhibits nonclassical features and is zero at the moment when the atom is fully excited and when the fluorescent intensity is greatest.¹ We show theoretically that a similar conclusion applies to interference between the fluorescent photons and the elastically scattered part of the driving field, which can be separated out with narrow band filters in practice. This involves the calculation of certain fourth order, three-time correlation functions that have not previously been studied. A possible application of the theory to an interference experiment will be discussed.

© 1992 Optical Society of America