Preparation of the W State of Atoms in a Single Cavity or N Distant Cavities by Photon Interference

We suggest two schemes to generate the W state of N Λ-type three-level atoms. In the schemes, identical N three-level atoms are trapped in a cavity or N distant cavities. The success or failure of the generation of the W state can be determined by detecting the polarization of photon leaking out of the cavity. The result demonstrates that the W state is free from both the cavity loss and the spontaneous emission due to the fact that the two ground states (left and right) of the three-level atoms are stable states (or metastable states).