We investigate conditions under which multiatom absorption of a single photon leads to cooperative decay. Our analysis reveals the symmetry properties of the multiatom Dicke states underlying the cooperative decay dynamics and their spatio-temporal manifestations, particularly, the forward-directed spontaneous emission investigated by Scully et al.
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0702194,
title = {Multiatom cooperative emission following single-photon absorption: Dicke-state dynamics},
author = {I. E. Mazets and G. Kurizki},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0702194},
year = {2007}
}