Conditional resonance-fluorescence spectra of single atoms

The temporal behavior of a single quantum system may contain information, for instance, about macroscopic dark periods in electron shelving, which is washed out or even lost in ensemble averages. The same is true in principle for spectral information. For example, for an atom with light and dark periods one might try to spectrally analyze the light emitted in a light period of given length or, more generally, the light emitted into one solid angle while monitoring the temporal emission in another solid angle. Considering different emission behaviors one may get different spectra, i. e. , spectra that are dependent on the conditions imposed. In this paper, such questions, in particular the notion of spectrum in a light period, are studied. To this end we generalize the recent quantum jump approach to include resonance-fluorescence spectra of single atoms. We explicitly show that the theory developed in this paper easily generalizes, e. g. , to absorption spectra. We apply the theory to a V system that has one metastable level and that may exhibit intermittent fluorescence when driven by two lasers. We show that the spectrum of resonance fluorescence of the complete ensemble differs substantially from that observed in a light period. A physical explanation of this behavior is presented. 1996 The American Physical Society.