A population model of thermal radiation

The population model of cavity photons previously introduced is analysed by identifying the non-Markov evolution in terms of phases whose durations are themselves independent and exponentially distributed random variables. The resulting radiation is shown to have thermal characteristics for an appropriate choice of the population parameters. The detection process is explicitly introduced and its characteristics are obtained. The model is shown to be viable enough to produce intensity spectra of different shapes corresponding to the resulting radiation. © 1989 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.