Second-order coherence of fluorescence in multi-photon blockade

We calculate the second-order correlation function for the atomic fluorescence in the two-photon resonance operation of a driven dissipative Jaynes–Cummings oscillator. We employ a minimal four-level model comprising the driven two-photon transition alongside two intermediate states visited in the dissipative cascaded process, in the spirit of Shamailov et al. (2010). We point to the difference between the output of a JC oscillator exhibiting two-photon blockade and the scattered field of ordinary resonance fluorescence, and discuss the quantum interference effect involving the intermediate states, which is also captured in the axially transmitted light. The spectrum and intensity correlation of atomic emission explicitly reflect the particulars of the cascaded model. •We address the coherence of side-scattering in the driven dissipative Jaynes–Cummings (JC) model.•We link atomic fluorescence to the multi-photon resonance operation of the JC oscillator.•We point to the differences from the scattered field of ordinary resonance fluorescence.•We show that fluorescence uncovers the details of the cascaded process organizing multi-photon blockade.