Resonance and Relaxation in Light Scattering

Time dependent description of resonance Raman scattering is performed for a general system, by a density matrix reformulation of damping theory originally used for resonance fluorescence of atom. Radiative damping in the intermediate states can be described in terms of "damping operator" in realistic situations. In large ergodic systems, the scattering reduces to luminescence if the relaxation time within the excited states is much shorter than the radiative lifetime. In a typical case, time resolved emission spectra consist of various stages (i) scattering complex where absorption and emission are inseparable, (ii) dynamical and then (iii) kinetic relaxations giving rise to the hot luminescence, which finally converges to (iv) the ordinary luminescence from relaxed excited states. Hot luminescence does not appear within a motionally narrowed line. The interpretation of spectra depends also on the method of observation.