Quantum Statistics of Superradiant Pulses

We investigate the statistical aspects of the cooperative emission of radiation by a system of many atoms. By solving the equation of motion for a suitably defined quasiprobability distribution which represents the density operator of the atoms, we find explicit expressions for the expectation values of products of atomic observables. The system is found to exhibit large quantum fluctuations for the most highly excited initial states of the atoms. For all others it exhibits nearly classical behavior. Previous numerical evaluations of the radiated intensity and its variance are found to be in good agreement with the present results.