  Two recent experiments studying the potential effect of entanglement on the
emission properties of excited atoms produced in molecular photodissociation
have been interpreted in conflicting ways. We present a theoretical analysis of
the problem, showing that the experimental results can be explained by a
combination of three processes: entanglement, exchange effects associated with
the identical nature of the atoms and disentanglement by spontaneous emission.
According to our approach these experiments provide the first verification of
the phenomenon of disentanglement by spontaneous emission.
