For , the Poisson distribution of photon number has width . Initially the atom therefore undergoes nearly classical Rabi oscillations at angular frequency approximately . However, the atomic inversion is a sum over slightly different frequencies:
The components dephase, causing collapse of the visible Rabi oscillations on a time scale of order ; a Gaussian photon-number approximation gives an initial envelope approximately . Their discrete phases later rephase, giving revivals near
The revival estimate follows by requiring the phase difference of neighbouring photon-number components to advance by . These Jaynes-Cummings collapse and revival effects arise from atom-field entanglement and photon-number discreteness. Large amplitude makes the initial classical description accurate over many Rabi periods, but does not eliminate quantum collapse and revival at all later times.