Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1912.04315 · Physical Review Letters

Supercorrelated Radiance in Nonlinear Photonic Waveguides

Zhihai Wang, Tuomas Jaako, Peter Kirton, Peter Rabl

Published May 27, 2020• 64 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the collective decay of two-level emitters coupled to a nonlinear waveguide, for example, a nanophotonic lattice or a superconducting resonator array with strong photon-photon interactions. Under these conditions, a new decay channel into bound photon pairs emerges, through which spatial correlations between emitters are established by regular interference as well as interactions between the photons. We derive an effective Markovian theory to model the resulting decay dynamics of an arbitrary distribution of emitters and identify collective effects beyond the usual phenomena of super- and subradiance. Specifically, in the limit of many close-by emitters, we find that the system undergoes a supercorrelated decay process where all the emitters are either in the excited state or in the ground state but not in any of the intermediate states. The predicted effects can be probed in state-of-the-art waveguide QED experiments and provide a striking example of how the dynamics of open quantum systems can be modified by many-body effects in a nonharmonic environment.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.124.213601

Related papers

Programmable Superradiance in an Interacting Qubit Array

Botao Du, Qihao Guo, Ruichao Ma

When multiple quantum emitters couple to a common electromagnetic environment, interference in their collective radiative dynamics gives rise to superradiance and subradiance. In regimes where coherent interactions and collective dissipation compete, the microscopic many-body dynamics and quantum correlations among the emitters that underlie superradiance and subradiance are theoretically challenging and remain experimentally elusive, even though collective emission has been observed in many physical systems. Here, we realize a superconducting qubit array coupled to a common microwave waveguide that mediates collective dissipation, with simultaneous access to coherent interactions and microscopic measurements of many-body dynamics. Engineered qubit-waveguide couplings with tunable amplitude and phase enable control of collective interference and the resulting super- and subradiant states. Leveraging site-resolved control and readout, we directly observe the microscopic decay dynamics of multi-qubit states across different excitation manifolds and track the evolution of populations and tunable quantum correlations. We reveal collective decay in regimes beyond the ideal Dicke model, where strong qubit-qubit interactions stabilize superradiance and subradiance against local dephasing and reshape decay pathways through spatially and spectrally structured many-body eigenstates. Our results establish a flexible platform for exploring collective phenomena in many-body quantum optics and driven-dissipative approaches to robust quantum information processing.

cond-mat.quant-gasCross-listedarXiv:2605.12442•May 13, 2026•0 citations

Subradiant states of quantum bits coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide

Andreas Albrecht, Loïc Henriet, Ana Asenjo-Garcı́a +3 more

The properties of coupled emitters can differ dramatically from those of their individual constituents. Canonical examples include sub- and super-radiance, wherein the decay rate of a collective excitation is reduced or enhanced due to correlated interactions with the environment. Here, we systematically study the properties of collective excitations for regularly spaced arrays of quantum emitters coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide. We find that, for low excitation numbers, the modal properties are well-characterized by spin waves with a definite wavevector. Moreover, the decay rate of the most subradiant modes obeys a universal scaling with a cubic suppression in the number of emitters. Multi-excitation subradiant eigenstates can be built from fermionic combinations of single excitation eigenstates; such 'fermionization' results in multiple excitations that spatially repel one another. We put forward a method to efficiently create and measure such subradiant states, which can be realized with superconducting qubits. These measurement protocols probe both real-space correlations (using on-site dispersive readout) and temporal correlations in the emitted field (using photon correlation techniques).

arXiv:1803.02115•New Journal of Physics•Jan 23, 2019•152 citations

Supercorrelated decay in a quasiperiodic nonlinear waveguide: From Markovian to non-Markovian transitions

Jiaqi Li, Tian-Yu Zhou, Xin Wang

Mobility edges (MEs) are critical boundaries in disordered quantum systems that separate localized from extended states, significantly affecting transport properties and phase transitions. Although MEs are well-understood in single-photon systems, their manifestation in many-body contexts remains an active area of research. In this work, we investigate a one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard chain with a quasiperiodic potential modulating photon-photon interactions, effectively creating a mosaic lattice. We identify MEs for doublon states (i.e, bound photon pairs resulting from strong interactions) within the two-photon subspace. Our analytical solutions and numerical simulations confirm the existence of these MEs, extending single-photon MEs theories to the two-photon regime. Additionally, we analyze the dynamics of two emitters coupled to the waveguide, enabling the emission of supercorrelated photon pairs into the waveguide. Our findings reveal that coupling to extended states results in Markovian dynamics, characterized by exponentially supercorrelated decay, while coupling to localized states gives rise to non-Markovian dynamics, marked by suppressed decay and persistent oscillations. Here, a transition from Markovian to non-Markovian behavior occurs around the MEs of the doublons. Finally, we propose a feasible experimental implementation using superconducting circuits, providing a platform to observe the interplay between interactions and disorder in quantum systems.

arXiv:2501.03607•Physical Review A•Jul 14, 2025•1 citation

Time-delayed collective dynamics in waveguide QED and bosonic quantum networks

Carlos Barahona-Pascual, Hong Jiang, Alan C. Santos +1 more

Abstract This work introduces a theoretical framework to model the collective dynamics of quantum emitters in highly non-Markovian environments, interacting through the exchange of photons with significant retardations. The formalism consists on a set of coupled delay differential equations for the emitter’s raising/lowering operators σ i ± , supplemented by input–output relations that describe the field mediating the interactions. These equations capture the dynamics of both linear (bosonic) and nonlinear (two-level) emitter arrays. It is exact in some limits—e.g. bosonic emitters or generic systems with up to one collective excitation—and can be integrated to provide accurate results for larger numbers of photons. These equations support a study of collective spontaneous emission of emitter arrays in open waveguide-QED environments. This study uncovers an effect we term cascaded super- and sub-radiance, characterized by light-cone-limited propagation and increasingly correlated photon emission across distant emitters. The collective nature of this dynamics for two-level systems is evident both in the enhancement of collective emission rates, as well as in a superradiant burst with a faster than linear growth. While these effects should be observable in existing circuit QED devices or slight generalizations thereof, the formalism put forward in this work can be extended to model other systems such as network of quantum emitters or the generation of correlated photon states.

arXiv:2505.02642•Quantum Science and Technology•Nov 21, 2025•2 citations

Collective super- and subradiant dynamics between distant optical quantum emitters

Alexey Tiranov, Vasiliki Angelopoulou, Cornelis Jacobus van Diepen +9 more

Photon emission is the hallmark of light-matter interaction and the foundation of photonic quantum science, enabling advanced sources for quantum communication and computing. Although single-emitter radiation can be tailored by the photonic environment, the introduction of multiple emitters extends this picture. A fundamental challenge, however, is that the radiative dipole-dipole coupling rapidly decays with spatial separation, typically within a fraction of the optical wavelength. We realize distant dipole-dipole radiative coupling with pairs of solid-state optical quantum emitters embedded in a nanophotonic waveguide. We dynamically probe the collective response and identify both super- and subradiant emission as well as means to control the dynamics by proper excitation techniques. Our work constitutes a foundational step toward multiemitter applications for scalable quantum-information processing.

arXiv:2210.02439•Science•Jan 26, 2023•146 citations

Collective radiance with NV centers coupled to nonlinear phononic waveguides

Jia‐Qiang Chen, Yi‐Fan Qiao, Xing‐Liang Dong +3 more

Collective radiance is a fundamental phenomenon in quantum optics. However, these radiation effects remain largely unexplored in the field of quantum acoustics. In this work, we investigate the supercorrelated radiation effects in a nonlinear phononic waveguide that is coupled with NV centers. When the spin's frequency is below the scattering continuum but within the bound-state band of the phonon waveguide, a single NV center dissipates slowly, but two NV centers can exhibit a rapid exponential decay. When multiple NV spins are considered, supercorrelated radiance occurs at a rate N times faster than Dicke superradiance. The peak of the state distribution in supercorrelated radiance jumps directly from $|m=N/2\rangle$ to $|m=-N/2\rangle$, distinguished from the continuous shift of the peak in superradiance. This work provides deeper insight into the collective radiation effect and may find interesting applications in quantum information processing.

arXiv:2110.02825•Oct 6, 2021•0 citations
We study the collective decay of two-level emitters coupled to a nonlinear waveguide, for example, a nanophotonic lattice or a superconducting resonator array with strong photon-photon interactions. Under these conditions, a new decay channel into bound photon pairs emerges, through which spatial correlations between emitters are established by regular interference as well as interactions between the photons. We derive an effective Markovian theory to model the resulting decay dynamics of an arbitrary distribution of emitters and identify collective effects beyond the usual phenomena of super- and subradiance. Specifically, in the limit of many close-by emitters, we find that the system undergoes a supercorrelated decay process where all the emitters are either in the excited state or in the ground state but not in any of the intermediate states. The predicted effects can be probed in state-of-the-art waveguide QED experiments and provide a striking example of how the dynamics of open quantum systems can be modified by many-body effects in a nonharmonic environment.
When multiple quantum emitters couple to a common electromagnetic environment, interference in their collective radiative dynamics gives rise to superradiance and subradiance. In regimes where coherent interactions and collective dissipation compete, the microscopic many-body dynamics and quantum correlations among the emitters that underlie superradiance and subradiance are theoretically challenging and remain experimentally elusive, even though collective emission has been observed in many physical systems. Here, we realize a superconducting qubit array coupled to a common microwave waveguide that mediates collective dissipation, with simultaneous access to coherent interactions and microscopic measurements of many-body dynamics. Engineered qubit-waveguide couplings with tunable amplitude and phase enable control of collective interference and the resulting super- and subradiant states. Leveraging site-resolved control and readout, we directly observe the microscopic decay dynamics of multi-qubit states across different excitation manifolds and track the evolution of populations and tunable quantum correlations. We reveal collective decay in regimes beyond the ideal Dicke model, where strong qubit-qubit interactions stabilize superradiance and subradiance against local dephasing and reshape decay pathways through spatially and spectrally structured many-body eigenstates. Our results establish a flexible platform for exploring collective phenomena in many-body quantum optics and driven-dissipative approaches to robust quantum information processing.
The properties of coupled emitters can differ dramatically from those of their individual constituents. Canonical examples include sub- and super-radiance, wherein the decay rate of a collective excitation is reduced or enhanced due to correlated interactions with the environment. Here, we systematically study the properties of collective excitations for regularly spaced arrays of quantum emitters coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide. We find that, for low excitation numbers, the modal properties are well-characterized by spin waves with a definite wavevector. Moreover, the decay rate of the most subradiant modes obeys a universal scaling with a cubic suppression in the number of emitters. Multi-excitation subradiant eigenstates can be built from fermionic combinations of single excitation eigenstates; such 'fermionization' results in multiple excitations that spatially repel one another. We put forward a method to efficiently create and measure such subradiant states, which can be realized with superconducting qubits. These measurement protocols probe both real-space correlations (using on-site dispersive readout) and temporal correlations in the emitted field (using photon correlation techniques).
Mobility edges (MEs) are critical boundaries in disordered quantum systems that separate localized from extended states, significantly affecting transport properties and phase transitions. Although MEs are well-understood in single-photon systems, their manifestation in many-body contexts remains an active area of research. In this work, we investigate a one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard chain with a quasiperiodic potential modulating photon-photon interactions, effectively creating a mosaic lattice. We identify MEs for doublon states (i.e, bound photon pairs resulting from strong interactions) within the two-photon subspace. Our analytical solutions and numerical simulations confirm the existence of these MEs, extending single-photon MEs theories to the two-photon regime. Additionally, we analyze the dynamics of two emitters coupled to the waveguide, enabling the emission of supercorrelated photon pairs into the waveguide. Our findings reveal that coupling to extended states results in Markovian dynamics, characterized by exponentially supercorrelated decay, while coupling to localized states gives rise to non-Markovian dynamics, marked by suppressed decay and persistent oscillations. Here, a transition from Markovian to non-Markovian behavior occurs around the MEs of the doublons. Finally, we propose a feasible experimental implementation using superconducting circuits, providing a platform to observe the interplay between interactions and disorder in quantum systems.
Abstract This work introduces a theoretical framework to model the collective dynamics of quantum emitters in highly non-Markovian environments, interacting through the exchange of photons with significant retardations. The formalism consists on a set of coupled delay differential equations for the emitter’s raising/lowering operators σ i ± , supplemented by input–output relations that describe the field mediating the interactions. These equations capture the dynamics of both linear (bosonic) and nonlinear (two-level) emitter arrays. It is exact in some limits—e.g. bosonic emitters or generic systems with up to one collective excitation—and can be integrated to provide accurate results for larger numbers of photons. These equations support a study of collective spontaneous emission of emitter arrays in open waveguide-QED environments. This study uncovers an effect we term cascaded super- and sub-radiance, characterized by light-cone-limited propagation and increasingly correlated photon emission across distant emitters. The collective nature of this dynamics for two-level systems is evident both in the enhancement of collective emission rates, as well as in a superradiant burst with a faster than linear growth. While these effects should be observable in existing circuit QED devices or slight generalizations thereof, the formalism put forward in this work can be extended to model other systems such as network of quantum emitters or the generation of correlated photon states.
Photon emission is the hallmark of light-matter interaction and the foundation of photonic quantum science, enabling advanced sources for quantum communication and computing. Although single-emitter radiation can be tailored by the photonic environment, the introduction of multiple emitters extends this picture. A fundamental challenge, however, is that the radiative dipole-dipole coupling rapidly decays with spatial separation, typically within a fraction of the optical wavelength. We realize distant dipole-dipole radiative coupling with pairs of solid-state optical quantum emitters embedded in a nanophotonic waveguide. We dynamically probe the collective response and identify both super- and subradiant emission as well as means to control the dynamics by proper excitation techniques. Our work constitutes a foundational step toward multiemitter applications for scalable quantum-information processing.
Collective radiance is a fundamental phenomenon in quantum optics. However, these radiation effects remain largely unexplored in the field of quantum acoustics. In this work, we investigate the supercorrelated radiation effects in a nonlinear phononic waveguide that is coupled with NV centers. When the spin's frequency is below the scattering continuum but within the bound-state band of the phonon waveguide, a single NV center dissipates slowly, but two NV centers can exhibit a rapid exponential decay. When multiple NV spins are considered, supercorrelated radiance occurs at a rate N times faster than Dicke superradiance. The peak of the state distribution in supercorrelated radiance jumps directly from ∣m=N/2⟩|m=N/2\rangle∣m=N/2⟩ to ∣m=−N/2⟩|m=-N/2\rangle∣m=−N/2⟩, distinguished from the continuous shift of the peak in superradiance. This work provides deeper insight into the collective radiation effect and may find interesting applications in quantum information processing.