The dynamics of an atom-field system with degenerate atomic levels and a polarization-degenerate mode of the quantised field in a damped micro-cavity

The master equation for the atom-field system with degenerate atomic levels and two polarization modes of the quantized field in a damped micro-cavity is obtained in the basis of eigenvectors of the interaction operator. The solution for the lossless cavity is obtained. The analytic expressions for the probability of emission of the photon in the cavity by an excited atom and of the photon polarization matrix are derived in the 'strong coupling' and 'bad cavity' approximations for arbitrary values of angular momenta of atomic levels. The dependence of the photon polarization on the polarization of the short excitation pulse is studied.