Motivated by a recent experiment [J. Eschner {\it et al.}, Nature {\bf 413}, 495 (2001)], we now present a theoretical study on the fluorescence of an atom in front of a mirror. On the assumption that the presence of the distant mirror and a lens imposes boundary conditions on the electric field in a plane close to the atom, we derive the intensities of the emitted light as a function of an effective atom-mirror distance. The results obtained are in good agreement with the experimental findings.
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0206080,
title = {Spontaneous emission of an atom in front of a mirror},
author = {Almut Beige and Jiannis Pachos and Herbert Walther},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0206080},
year = {2009}
}