In this paper, we study cooperative scattering of low intensity light by a cloud of N two-level systems. We include the incident laser field driving these two-level systems and compute the radiation pressure force on the center of mass of the cloud. This signature is of particular interest for experiments with laser cooled atoms. Including the complex coupling between dipoles in a scalar model for dilute clouds of two-level systems, we obtain expression for cooperative scattering forces taking into account the collective Lamb shift. We also derive the expression of the radiation pressure force on a large cloud of two-level systems from an heuristic approach and show that at lowest driving intensities this force is identical for a product and an entangled state.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, article for special issue of PQE 201

Subradiance, i.e., the cooperative inhibition of spontaneous emission by destructive interatomic interference, can be realized in a cold atomic sample confined in a ring cavity and lightened by a two-frequency laser. The atoms, scattering the photons of the two laser fields into the cavity mode, recoil and change their momentum. Under proper conditions the atomic initial momentum state and the first two momentum recoil states form a three-level degenerate cascade. A stationary subradiant state is obtained after the scattered photons have left the cavity, leaving the atoms in a coherent superposition of the three collective momentum states. Both a semiclassical description of the process and the quantum subradiant state with its Wigner function are given. Antibunching, quantum correlations, and entanglement between the atomic modes of the subradiant state are demonstrated.