  We consider the scenario in which a damped three-level atom in the ladder or
V configurations is coupled to a single cavity mode whose vacuum state is
amplified by dint of the dynamical Casimir effect. We obtain approximate
analytical expressions and exact numerical results for the time-dependent
probabilities, demonstrating that the presence of the third level modifies the
photon statistics and its population can serve as a witness of photon
generation from vacuum.
