Transverse and phase effects in light control by light - Pump dynamics in superfluorescence

Superfluorescence (SF) is the dynamical radiation process which evolves from a collection of atoms or molecules prepared initially in the fully inverted state, and which subsequently undergoes collective, spontaneous relaxation. In connection with the present study, attention is given to calculational results and an analysis for the effects of coherent pump dynamics, propagation, transverse and diffraction effects on SF emission from an optically-pumped three-level system. The full, nonlinear, copropagational aspects of the injected pump pulse, together with the SF which evolves are explicitly treated in the calculation. The obtained results relate strongly to previous calculations and experimental results. A new concept in nonlinear light-matter interactions is proposed.