Implications of radiative equilibrium in neoclassical theory

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Abstract
We discuss some implications of the description of spontaneous emission of radiation which has been offered by Jaynes and his collaborators in their "neoclassical" extension of semiclassical electrodynamics. In particular, we examine the thermal-equilibrium condition of radiation interacting with a tenuous gas of atoms. We argue that rate equations may be used to describe the interaction of such atoms with the chaotic thermal radiation field. For this situation the neoclassical spontaneous emission rate is incompatible with the well-secured laws of Boltzmann and Planck. Experimental evidence bearing on the accuracy of those laws as well as on the accepted level population dependence of the induced emission rate is reviewed.