G. Drobny et al., Stimulated emission via quantum interference: scattering of one-photon packets on an atom in a ground state, J MOD OPT, 47(5), 2000, pp. 851-860
Usually it is assumed that the stimulated emission appears as a consequence
of the Bose-Einstein statistics of photons and that to observe this effect
at least two excitations have to be initially present in the atom-field sy
stem. That is, both the atom and the electromagnetic field have to be excit
ed. In this paper we show that stimulated emission can appear exclusively a
s a consequence of quantum interference in a system with just a single exci
tation. Specifically, we consider a single two-level atom which is initiall
y in its lower energy state and it interacts with a single-photon multi-mod
e wave packet. We show that for a proper choice of the photon-wave packet t
he atom can exhibit stimulated emission.