The initiation of superfluorescence

The early stages of a superfluorescent pulse are described with full account of both quantum and propagation effects. The pulse is triggered by zero point fluctuations of the atomic polarization field. If the number of atoms N is large these zero point fluctuations, and the electric field radiated at early times as well, have a gaussian distribution with width 4/N. An equivalent classical stochastic process is found in terms of which the later, intrinsically nonlinear part of the radiation problem can be analyzed.