This page is among our 'good articles'. It should/could be further expanded but we hope that it will still be useful in its present stage.

Macroscopic quantum jumps in a single atom. A. Schenzle and R. G. Brewer in Phys. Rev. A 34:3127 (1986).  What the paper says?

This concerns the dynamics of strongly driven 3LS, with coherent fields (this is pre-EIT). The problem is related to quantum-jumps and whether there is interruption of the signal under CW driving. A detailed theoretical description of spontaneous emission from a three-level system is needed, which is offered in the V configuration ($\Lambda$ in appendix):

There is an interesting introduction (of a historical character?) with insights from Dehmelt and Cook & Kimble.

On the similarity between coherent & incoherent pumping:

Photon-counting statistics are calculated to both two and three-level systems, which should be compared to our results. See also Refs.