Bose - Einstein Partition Statistics of Photons Emitted from a Superradiant Active Microcavity

We report the results of the first investigation on the superradiant temporal and spatial quantum dynamics of two dipoles excited in a planar symmetrical microcavity by a controlled femtosecond two-pulse excitation. A superradiant enhancement of the time decay of the dipole excitation for a decreasing inter-dipole transverse distance R has been found. Furthermore, the photon partition statistics of the emitted field is found to exhibit a striking quantum behaviour for R ≤ lc, the transverse extension of the single allowed microcavity mode. PACS numbers: 42.50.Dv, 32.50.+d, 42.50.Vk It has been demonstrated that the planar active microcavity behaves as a reliable source of nonclassical radiation when small ensembles of fluorescent molecules are isolated within the optical resonator and excited by a sequence of femtosecond laser pulses [1, 2]. In these conditions the ultrashort pulse excitation forbids the dynamical recycling between the lower and the excited molecular levels leading to a strictly single photon emission over one of the two allowed external output modes, k and k’, of the microcavity with relevant ”microscopic” dimension d = m 2 and m = 1. We can double this process by focusing two independent femtosecond pulses, within a transverse