It has been shown recently [see, for example, S.-Y. Zhu and M. O. Scully, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 388 (1996)] that a dynamical suppression of spontaneous emission can occur in a three-level system when an external field drives transitions between a metastable state and two decaying states. What is unusual in the decay scheme is that the decaying states are coupled directly by the vacuum radiation field. It is shown that the decay dynamics required for total suppression of spontaneous emission necessarily implies that the level scheme is isomorphic to a three-level Λ system, in which the lower two levels are both metastable and each is coupled to the decaying state. As such, the total suppression of spontaneous emission can be explained in terms of conventional dark states and coherent population trapping.

• Received 22 May 1998

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.58.4886