Abstract
Motivated by a recent experiment [J. Eschner et al., Nature (London) 413, 495 (2001)], we now present a theoretical study on the fluorescence of an atom in front of a mirror. On the assumption that the presence of the distant mirror and a lens imposes boundary conditions on the electric field in a plane close to the atom, we derive the intensities of the emitted light as a function of an effective atom-mirror distance. The results obtained are in good agreement with the experimental findings.
- Received 12 June 2002
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.66.063801
©2002 American Physical Society
