Abstract
We investigate the damped interaction between two I >-type three-level atoms and a quantized single-mode cavity field, for which the Hamiltonian of the field is rewritten in Caldirola-Kanai form. We obtain the wave functions for the case where the two atoms are initially prepared in arbitrary pure states and the field is initially prepared in the coherent state. We investigate numerically the influence of the damping parameter on the temporal behavior of the Mandel Q-parameter, linear entropy, and normal squeezing. We find the damping parameter and initial atomic states to play central roles in the nonclassical features and the degree of entanglement.