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Dicke’S Superradiance In Astrophysics, Fereshteh Rajabi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

It is generally assumed that in the interstellar medium much of the emission emanating from atomic and molecular transitions within a radiating gas happen independently for each atom or molecule, but as was pointed out by R. H. Dicke in a seminal paper several decades ago this assumption does not apply in all conditions. As will be discussed in this thesis, and following Dicke’s original analysis, closely packed atoms/molecules can interact with their common electromagnetic field and radiate coherently through an effect he named superradiance. Superradiance is a cooperative quantum mechanical phenomenon characterized by high intensity, spatially compact, burst-like features …