Unified theory of consequences of spontaneous emission in a Λ system -: art. no. 195327

In a Lambda system with two nearly degenerate ground states and one excited state in an atom or quantum dot, spontaneous radiative decay can lead to a range of phenomena, including electron-photon entanglement. spontaneously generated coherence, and two-pathway decay. We show that a treatment of the radiative decay as a quantum evolution of a single physical system composed of a three-level electron subsystem and photons leads to a range of consequences depending on the electron-photon interaction and the measurement, Different treatments of the emitted photon channel the electron-photon system into a variety of final states. The theory is not restricted to the three-level system.