Quantum Mechanical Resonant Light Scattering

Abstract

The problem of resonant light scattering was first treated correctly [1] by an adaptation of a Markoff method borrowed from quantum statistical mechanics [2]. The accuracy of the method, which relied upon an assumption of statistical factorization of atomic and emission field variables, was subsequently confirmed by theoretical analyses carried out both in the Schrödinger picture, where solutions for the complete correlated atom-field state vector were obtained [3,4], and the Heisenberg picture, where methods based on operator radiation reaction theory [5,6] yielded the same results [7–9]. In other analyses the incident field, which had been represented by a c-number in Ref. 1, was treated quantum mechanically [10,11,30]. Subsequently, the use of a c-number applied field was shown quite generally to be an exact quantum mechanical method [5]. Experimental studies, beginning with Schuda, Stroud, and Hercher’s important experiment [12] have with the more recent and precise measurements of Ezekiel and coworkers [13] and Walther and coworkers [14] amply confirmed the predictions of what is now the generally accepted theory [1].

Supported by the National Science Foundation.