Influence of collisional dephasing processes on superfluorescence

We present a quantum-mechanical treatment of the influence of collisional dephasing processes on the statistical properties of superfluorescence (SF). The theory, which treats nonlinear propagation effects as well as quantum noise, shows how the nature of the cooperative emission process changes from that of SF to that of amplified spontaneous emission as the collisional dephasing rate is varied. The predictions of how the SF delay time varies with the collisional dephasing rate are in good agreement with the results of a recent experiment [M. S. Malcuit, J. J. Maki, D. J. Simkin, and R. W. Boyd, Phys. Rev. Lett. 59, 1189 (1987)].