Generation and nonclassicality of entangled states via the interaction of two three-level atoms with a quantized cavity field assisted by a driving external classical field

The interaction of two identical three-level atoms of the types $$V,\,\varXi $$V,Ξ and $$\varLambda $$Λ with a quantized cavity field as well as a driving external classical field is studied. Under two certain unitary transformations, the system is converted to a typical form of the Jaynes–Cummings model for two three-level atoms. The exact analytical solutions of the wave function for different considered atom–field systems are exactly obtained with the help of the Laplace transform technique, when the atoms are initially prepared in the topmost excited state and the quantized field is in a coherent state. In order to examine the nonclassicality features of the deduced states, the dynamics of the entanglement between subsystems is discussed via two well-known measures, namely, von Neumann entropy of the reduced state and negativity. In addition, we pay attention to the temporal behavior of quantum statistics of the photons of the field and squeezing phenomenon. Meanwhile, the influence of the external classical field on the latter physical quantities is analyzed in detail. The results show that the mentioned quantities can be sensitively controlled via the external classical field. Also, numerical computations imply the fact that the nonclassicality features in $$\varXi $$Ξ-type three-level atomic system is more visible than the other two configurations. In addition, it is shown that in the particular case of $$\varLambda $$Λ-type atomic system, the rank of the reduced density matrix of the three-level atoms is no larger than three, so that negativity fully captures the entanglement of this system and that such entanglement is distillable.