Coherent Cooperative Phenomena

This anthology is devoted to the theoretical and experimental study of coherent phenomena in quantum optics. Considerable attention is devoted to the investigation of cooperative effects in multilevel molecular and atomic systems. The theoretical analysis is based on a single approach, using the theory of groups, which makes it possible to present the results in a compact and physically elegant form. The results of a detailed experimental and theoretical investigation of the photon echo, self-induced transparency, and nutation are presented. The theory of a coherent resonant mechanism for the interaction of laser radiation with multi atomic molecules which causes "prompt" dissociation is presented. A number of applied pos sibilities, in particular, the control of radiation by laser light and laser isotope separation, are analyzed.

The quantum statistical properties of radiation represent an important branch of modern physics with rapidly increasing applications in spectroscopy, quantum generators of radiation, optical communication, etc. They have also an increasing role in fields other than pure physics, such as biophysics, psychophysics, biology, etc. Interesting applications have been developed in high energy elementary particle collisions. The present monograph represents an extension and continuation of the previous monograph by this author entitled Coherence of Light (Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, London 1972, translated into Russian in the Publishing House Mir, Moscow 1974, second edition published by D. Reidel, Dordrecht-Boston 1985) and ofa review chapter in Progress in Optics, Vol. 18 (edited by E. Wolf, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1980) as well. It applies the fundamental tools of the coherent-state technique, as described in Coherence of Light, to particular studies of the quantum statistical properties of radiation interacting with matter. In particular. nonlinear optical processes are considered, and purely quantum phenom ena such as antibunching of photons, their sub-Poisson behaviour and squeezing of vacuum fluctuations are discussed. Compared to the first edition of this book, pub lished in 1984, we have added much more information about squeezing of vacuum fluctuations in nonlinear optical process in this second edition; further we have included the description of experiments and their results performed from that time. Also a new brief chapter on nonlinear dynamics and chaos in quantum statistical optics has been included.

This monograph, "Non-linear Cooperative Effects in Open Quantum Systems: Entanglement and Second Order Coherence" is dedicated to the large auditory of specialists interested in the modern approaches in quantum open systems, cooperative phenomena between excited atoms and the field of the non-linear interaction. Special attention is dedicated to the problems of non-linear interaction with vacuum fields and thermostat with finite temperature, but quantum aspects of laser generation of light in non-linear interaction with finite numbers of cavity modes remain the center of attention. In many situations, the limit to the traditional cooperative phenomena of open quantum systems and thermodynamics are taken into consideration. As the book contains the class of non-linear effects of generations of the particle in such cooperative phenomena, the author's aim was to describe squeezed problems and affect entanglement between the generation photons and phonons in cooperative processes. The new phenomenon of cooperative emission in the single- and two-quantum processes are carefully described for large audiences of specialists in the field of quantum optics and condensed matter physics, chemistry and biology.

This book presents a systematic and coherent approach to phase transitions and critical phenomena, namely the coherent-anomaly method (CAM theory) based on cluster mean-field approximations. The first part gives a brief review of the CAM theory and the second part a collection of reprints covering the CAM basic calculations, the Blume-Emery-Griffiths model, the extended Baxter model, the quantum Heisenberg model, zero-temperature phase transitions, the KT-transition, spin glasses, the self-avoiding walk, contact processes, branching processes, the gas-liquid transition and even non-equilibrium phase transitions.

Progress in Optics is a well-established series of volumes of review articles dealing with theoretical and applied optics and related subjects. Widely acclaimed by numerous reviewers as representing an authoritative and up-to-date source of information in all branches of optics, the series continues to fulfil a genuine need within the scientific community. Articles are contributed by leading scientists (including two Nobel Prize winners) chosen by the Editor, with the advice of an international panel of experts constituting the Editorial Advisory Board. Many of the articles appearing in these volumes have since been established as basic references in their respective fields.