On the temporal shapes of superradiance pulses

The equations describing the temporal shapes of superradiance pulses formed on the transitions with degenerate levels and on the transitions with part ially resolved hyperfine structure of resonant levels are obtained for the pencil-shaped gaseous samples in a semiclassical two-wave approximation und er the assumption of the fixed polarizations of the pulses, which reduces g reatly the number of equations. The numerical calculations are carried out in some cases with low values of the level angular momenta. In all the case s, like in the case of a simple two-level system, the temporal shape of the super radiance pulse reveals the damping oscillations. However, in the gen eral case of degenerate levels (e.g., the transitions 3/2 --> 3/2), unlike two-level systems, the superradiance pulse with the fixed polarization does not depopulate the excited level totally.