The interaction between a coherently oscillating radiation field, such as is generally encountered in micro-wave experiments, and a number of similar atomic systems coupled to the field through their electric dipole moments is analyzed for the case of resonance between atomic system and field, with both the field and molecules treated quantum-mechanically. Expressions are derived for the expectation value of field strength and the energy, and comparison between the two makes it possible to distinguish between coherent and incoherent parts of the energy, the former having its counterpart in the expectation value of the field strength, while the latter has no such counterpart. Terms corresponding to induced and spontaneous emission are identified, and it is shown that the latter includes both coherent and incoherent components. Special situations related to masers and to the coherence of spontaneous radiation are discussed. The distinction between the behavior of correlated and uncorrelated states is examined, and it is shown that both the coherent emission from uncorrelated states and the incoherent emission from correlated states may be proportional to the square of the number of molecules. The phase of the field is predictable for the coherent emission but unpredictable for the incoherent emission.

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