Interference-induced splitting of resonances in spontaneous emission

Abstract

We study the resonance fluorescence from a coherently driven four-level atom in the Y-type configuration. The effects of quantum interference induced by spontaneous emission on the fluorescence properties of the atom are investigated. It is found that the quantum interference resulting from cascade emission decays of the atom leads to a splitting of resonances in the excited-level populations calculated as a function of light detuning. For some parameters, interference-assisted enhancement of inner sidebands and narrowing of central peaks may also occur in the fluorescence spectrum. We present a physical understanding of our numerical results using the dressed-state description of the atom-light interaction.