Coherent control of interference processes in radiative decays

Possibility of coherent control of spontaneous emission from four- and five-level system in the laser radiation field is studied. The four-level system consists of two levels resonantly driven by laser radiation where either of levels may decay to a separate level. For such a system, we show that the presence of the second decay channel may deteriorate the destructive interference occurring in case of one decay channel because of Autler-Townes effect. The five-level diagram represents two two-level resonantly driven systems with the upper levels decaying to a common level. For this diagram, interference between the two decay channels takes place and it is partially or completely destructive or constructive depending on the initial conditions and on the mutual orientation of the transition dipole moments. It is shown that population transfer takes place by the same quantum vacuum via spontaneous emission. The populations are shown to have damping oscillatory nature.