Phase-sensitive population decay: The two-atom Dicke model in a broadband squeezed vacuum

We show that atoms interacting with a squeezed radiation field reservoir can exhibit phase-dependent population decay and relax into a highly correlated pure state, in striking difference to decay in a heat bath. We use a Heisenberg operator treatment of radiative transitions in a broadband squeezed light field described as a quantum white-noise field with correlated fluctuations to describe the modified decay of a single atom, and of two atoms cooperatively decaying in a squeezed vacuum. We compare this decay with that generated by a broadband thermal field which lacks the essential field-mode correlations characteristic of squeezing.