Phase-dependent fluctuations in intermittent resonance fluorescence

Abstract: Electron shelving gives rise to bright and dark periods in the resonance fluorescence of a three-level atom. The corresponding incoherent spectrum contains a very narrow inelastic peak on top of a two-level-like spectrum. Using the theories of balanced and conditional homodyne detection we study ensemble averaged phase-dependent fluctuations of intermittent resonance fluorescence. The sharp peak is found only in the spectra of the squeezed quadrature. In balanced homodyne detection that peak is positive, which greatly reduces the squeezing, also seen in its variance. In conditional homodyne detectionCHD, for weak to moderate laser intensity, the peak is negative, enhancing the squeezing, and for strong fields the sidebands become dispersive which, together with the positive sharp peak dominate the spectrum. The latter effect is due to non-negligible third order fluctuations produced by the atom-laser nonlinearity and the increased steady state population of the shelving state. A simple mathematical approach allows us to obtain accurate analytical results.