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We present a theoretical framework based on second quantization in Liouville space to treat open quantum systems. We consider an ensemble of identical quantum emitters characterized by a discrete set of quantum states. The second quantization is performed directly at the level of density matrices, thereby significantly reducing the size of the Liouville space. In contrast to conventional Hilbert space techniques, statistically mixed states and dissipation are naturally incorporated. As a particular example of application, we study the effect of incoherent processes and statistical mixing of emitters' initial states in the interaction with quantum light. Moreover, we link our framework to a phase-space description of the dynamics, which can overcome the computational limitations of our method with the increasing number of particles., Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures

We report on the observation of time-resolved quantum beats in the helium fluorescence from the transition 1s3p -> 1s2s, where the initial state is excited by XUV free-electron laser radiation. The quantum beats originate from the Zeeman splitting of the magnetic substates due to an external magnetic field. We perform a systematic study of this effect and discuss the possibilities of studying this phenomenon in the XUV and x-ray regime., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures