A non-markovian model of photodetection of cavity radiation

A non-markovian model of the detection of cavity photons is proposed. The cavity photons interact with the atoms of the detector in a two- stage process, while the evolution of the cavity photons is modelled, as usual, as a population process with constant rate parameters. The joint distribution of the cavity photons and the number of detected photoelectrons is studied. The results corresponding to the markovian model proposed by Shepherd are recovered by an appropriate limiting procedure. Some simple characteristics of the twofold counting statistics are also obtained. In particular, the memory effects of two- stage detection are shown to result in a depletion of bunching; the shape of the spectrum (in the time domain), while similar to that obtained using the Shepherd model, is depressed pointwise by a memory-dependent factor. © 1985 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.