Characterization of the Quasi-Stationary State of an Impurity Driven by Monochromatic Light I - The Effective Theory

We consider an impurity ($N$--level atom) driven by monochromatic light in a host environment which is a fermionic thermal reservoir. The external light source is a time--periodic perturbation of the atomic Hamiltonian stimulating transitions between two atomic energy levels $E_{1}$ and $E_{N}$ and thus acts as an optical pump. The purpose of the present work is the analysis of the effective atomic dynamics resulting from the full microscopic time--evolution of the compound system. We prove, in particular, that the atomic dynamics of population relaxes for large times to a quasi-stationary state, that is, a stationary state up to small oscillations driven by the external light source. This state turns out to be uniquely determined by a balance condition. The latter is related to \textquotedblleft generalized Einstein relations\textquotedblright relations of spontaneous/stimulated emission/absorption rates, which are conceptually similar to the phenomenological relations derived by Einstein in 1916. As an application we show from quantum mechanical first principles how an inversion of population of energy levels of an impurity in a crystal can appear. Our results are based on the spectral analysis of the generator of the evolution semigroup related to a non--autonomous Cauchy problem effectively describing the atomic dynamics.