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arXiv:1408.0825 · Physical Review A

Single-photon superradiance in cold atoms

Rafael Alves De Oliveira, Milrian S. Mendes, Weliton Soares Martins, Pablo L. Saldanha, J. W. R. Tabosa, D. Felinto

Published Aug 26, 2014• 61 citations
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Abstract

The interaction of an ensemble of atoms with common vacuum modes may lead to an enhanced emission into these modes. This phenomenon, known as superradiance, highlights the coherent nature of spontaneous emission, resulting in macroscopic entangled states in mundane situations. The complexity of the typical observations of superradiance, however, masks its quantum nature, allowing alternative classical interpretations. Here we stress how this picture changed with the implementation ten years ago of a new process for single-photon generation from atomic ensembles. We present then the last piece of evidence for the superradiant nature of such a process, reporting the observation of an accelerated emission of the photon with a rate that may be tuned by controllably changing the number of atoms in the ensemble. We hope such an investigation will help open up a new bottom-up approach to the study of superradiance.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.90.023848

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The interaction of an ensemble of atoms with common vacuum modes may lead to an enhanced emission into these modes. This phenomenon, known as superradiance, highlights the coherent nature of spontaneous emission, resulting in macroscopic entangled states in mundane situations. The complexity of the typical observations of superradiance, however, masks its quantum nature, allowing alternative classical interpretations. Here we stress how this picture changed with the implementation ten years ago of a new process for single-photon generation from atomic ensembles. We present then the last piece of evidence for the superradiant nature of such a process, reporting the observation of an accelerated emission of the photon with a rate that may be tuned by controllably changing the number of atoms in the ensemble. We hope such an investigation will help open up a new bottom-up approach to the study of superradiance.
Superradiance in an ensemble of atoms leads to the collective enhancement of radiation in a particular mode shared by the atoms in their spontaneous decay from an excited state. The quantum aspects of this phenomenon are highlighted when such collective enhancement is observed in the emission of a single quantum of light. Here we report a further step in exploring experimentally the nonclassical features of superradiance by implementing the process not only with single excitations, but also in a two-excitation state. Particularly, we measure and theoretically model the wave packets corresponding to superradiance in both the single-photon and two-photon regimes. Such progress opens the way to the study and future control of the interaction of nonclassical light modes with collective quantum memories at higher photon numbers.
Building up to superradiance, one by one Superradiance is a quantum phenomenon that occurs when emitters are sufficiently close to change spontaneous emission. Controlling the position and state of emitters within an atomic ensemble, however, is technically challenging. Kim et al. show that spatial correlations can be replaced by temporal correlations to achieve superradiance (see the Perspective by Meschede). They dropped prepared atoms into a high-quality optical cavity and found that the number of photons within the cavity built up superradiantly as the atoms dropped through one by one. The method provides a versatile platform for generating nonclassical states of light. Science , this issue p. 662 ; see also p. 641
Atom coherence in the cooperative interaction between the atoms and a single photon creates ultrafast spontaneous emission and ultrastrong intensity peaks, namely single-photon superradiance, which has attracted considerable research interest in the recent years. As the investigation for such a single-photon superradiance usually involves only quantum emitters, in this paper we present the cooperative atom-photon interaction in a system including whispering gallery mode resonators, which are one of the most essential components in nanophotonic devices. Here we both analytically and computationally show that the separated atoms on a resonator can obtain cooperative interaction, manifesting superradiant coupling strength, which results in the ultrafast spontaneous emission and ultrastrong intensity peaks. The conditions of such single-photon superradiance are called whispering gallery mode superradiance conditions. Furthermore, the atoms are proved to have cooperative interaction on a cascade of resonators by a renormalization approach.
Recent work has shown that collective single photon emission from an ensemble of resonate two-level atoms, i.e., single photon superradiance, is a rich field of study. The present Letter addresses the flip side of superradiance, i.e., subradiance. Single photon subradiant states are potentially stable against collective spontaneous emission and can have ultrafast readout. In particular it is shown how many atom collective effects provide a new way to control spontaneous emission by preparing and switching between subradiant and superradiant states.
We study the collective spontaneous emission of a linear atomic chain excited by a single photon. The interaction between the atoms and the common vacuum field can significantly change the eigenenergy and the spontaneous emission rate of the system. Due to the dipole-dipole interactions, the system prepared in a single-photon timed Dicke state is the superposition of superradiant and subradiant eigenstates that can have a nonexponential decay dynamics. We can tune the frequency and linewidth of the superradiant and subradiant emission from a timed Dicke state by changing the direction of the atomic dipole moment or the atomic separation. In addition, the emission direction of the superradiant and subradiant photons also depends on the polarization of the atoms.
Superradiant biphoton emission from atomic ensembles provides a powerful route to generating highly correlated quantum light, yet its microscopic physical origin has remained incompletely understood. In particular, it is often unclear how collective enhancement, spontaneous emission, and vacuum fluctuations jointly give rise to both paired biphoton generation and unavoidable unpaired background within a single, self-consistent framework. Here we present a fully quantum microscopic theory within a unified Heisenberg--Langevin--Maxwell framework that explicitly incorporates dissipation and quantum noise, thereby revealing the microscopic origin of superradiant biphoton emission in atomic ensembles. The theory provides a consistent description of parametric gain and unpaired noise within the same open-quantum-system framework and applies to both Doppler-free cold atomic ensembles and Doppler-broadened warm vapors. In the high-optical-depth regime, the coupled propagation equations admit analytical solutions, under which the biphoton dynamics rigorously reduce to an effective collective two-level emission process. Within this limit, the biphoton correlation time and spectral properties are shown to obey closed-form scaling relations governed by optical depth and excited-state decoherence. Our results establish a unified microscopic picture of superradiant biphoton generation and clarify the fundamental role of vacuum fluctuations and dissipation in setting the brightness, pairing efficiency, and temporal structure of atomic biphoton sources, with direct relevance to quantum networking and atomic quantum interfaces.