STEADY-STATES OF A STATIONARY ATOM IN A Q UANTIZED FIELD OF RESONANT COUNTERPROPAGATING WAVES

Possible steady states of the system consisting of a stationary atom i n a resonant field of quantized counterpropagating waves of equal freq uency were considered without allowance for spontaneous relaxation pro cesses. In the initial state (in the absence of interaction) the photo n subsystem has a definite number of photons in each of the waves, Ana lytical expressions for energy spectrum and wave functions of this sys tem were obtained. In particular, it was shown that the considered sys tem can be in a steady state only if the mean numbers of photons in th e counterpropagating waves are equal, The time interval was estimated during which the system with an arbitrary initial number of photons in the counterpropagating waves passes into a steady state with equal nu mber of photons in them.