Two-photon cooperative decay in a cavity in the presence of a thermalized electromagnetic field

We study the cooperative two-photon spontaneous decay of an excited atomic system in a microcavity whose size is of the order of several wavelengths of atomic radiation. We show that a thermalized electromagnetic field in the microcavity strongly affects the two-photon cooperative spontaneous emission of radiation. The increase in the rate of spontaneous cooperative decay is due to the presence of a small number of thermalized photons in a microcavity mode. At low temperatures, the two-photon absorption probability is found to be a linear function of the two-photon flux, and photon superbunching is observed. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S1063-7761(99)00104-3].