SQUEEZING OF LIGHT BY A COLLECTION OF ATOMS

We study squeezing in electromagnetic field quadrature components, pro duced by a collection of A two-level atoms interacting with a single m ode of a strong electromagnetic field. We present analytic results bot h for short and long interaction times. At short times, squeezing grow s with the number of atoms for a given initial number of photons. The maximum squeezing which can be achieved in a strong-field case is 66%. At long interaction times, collective effects increase the quadrature fluctuations. compared to the single-atom case. However, for a given number of atoms A, any initial pure atomic state exhibits squeezing wh en the mean photon number of the initial coherent field satisfies the condition (n) over bar(2A)(4). At times close to the first revival, st rong squeezing can be achieved for special initial atomic conditions.