Abstract

In this paper we show that the suppression and enhancement of spontaneous emission in a cavity can be modeled classically because the electromagnetic mode structure is essentially a classical property of the electromagnetic field. It is well known that the mode structure of the field can be altered by the presence of boundaries and that the altered mode structure will affect the spontaneous emission rate of an atom confined in the cavity. We show that the cavity mode structure will affect the radiation pattern of a classical radiating dipole in a fashion that is similar to the quantum electrodynamic result.

© 1991 Optical Society of America