We investigate the collective non-Markovian dynamics of two fully excited two-level atoms coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide in the presence of delay. We demonstrate that analogous to the well-known superfluorescence phenomena, where an inverted atomic ensemble synchronizes to enhance its emission, there is a “subfluorescence” effect that synchronizes the atoms into an entangled dark state depending on the interatomic separation. The phenomenon can lead to a two-photon bound state in the continuum. Our results are pertinent to long-distance quantum networks, presenting a mechanism for spontaneous entanglement generation between distant quantum emitters. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
We investigate the collective non-Markovian dynamics of two fully excited two-level atoms coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide in the presence of delay. We demonstrate that analogous to the well-known superfluorescence phenomena, where an inverted atomic ensemble synchronizes to enhance its emission, there is a “subfluorescence” effect that synchronizes the atoms into an entangled dark state depending on the interatomic separation. The phenomenon can lead to a two-photon bound state in the continuum. Our results are pertinent to long-distance quantum networks, presenting a mechanism for spontaneous entanglement generation between distant quantum emitters. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
An investigation is reported of the collective effects and the dynamics of atom–atom entanglement in a system of two distant two-level atoms which are coupled via an optical element. In the system under consideration, the two atoms, which are trapped in the foci of a lens, are coupled to a common environment being in the vacuum state and they emit photons spontaneously. A fraction of the emitted photons from each atom is thus focused on the position of the other atom. The presence of optical element between two distant atoms leads to the occurrence of delayed collective effects, such as delayed dipole–dipole interaction and delayed collective spontaneous emission, which play the crucial role in the dynamical behaviour of the entanglement. We discuss the phenomena of entanglement sudden birth, entanglement sudden death, and revival of entanglement for both cases of initial one-photon and initial two-photon unentangled atomic states. We show that the evolution of the entanglement is sensitive not only to the interatomic distance but also to the initial state of the system as well as to the properties of the optical element.
We study the spontaneous emission spectra of a few-level giant atom strongly coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide by employing variational and analytical approaches, which are beyond the rotating-wave approximation and the Markovian approximation. We show that the interference effects due to the multiple coupling points result in dark lines in spontaneous emission spectra of either two-level or three-level giant atoms regardless of whether there is a bound state or not. We illustrate that the generation of dark lines depends on the distance between the coupling points and their number. In the absence of a bound state, the dark lines can be used to suppress emission at a certain frequency in the spectrum. In the presence of a bound state, the total intensity of the emission spectrum can be significantly suppressed. The present results offer the possibility of control over the spontaneous emission with the dark lines due to the destructive interference in giant atoms. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Waveguide quantum electrodynamics constitutes a modern paradigm for the interaction of light and matter, in which strong coupling, bath structure, and propagation delays can break the radiative conditions that quantum emitters typically encounter in free space. These characteristics intertwine the excitations of quantum emitters and guided radiation modes to form complex multiphoton dynamics. So far, combining the collective decay of the emitters with the non-Markovian effects induced by the modes has escaped a full solution and the detailed physics behind these systems remains unknown. Here we analyze such a collective non-Markovian decay in a minimal system of two excited emitters coupled to a one-dimensional single-band waveguide. We develop an exact solution for this system in terms of elementary functions that unveils hidden symmetries and predicts new forms of spontaneous decay. The collective non-Markovian dynamics, which are strongly dependent on the vacuum coupling and the detuning from the center of the band, show exotic features that can be characterized with a simple and readily available criterion. Our analytic methods shed light on the complexity of collective light-matter interactions and open up a pathway for understanding multiparticle open quantum systems. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
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.
We study the quantum dynamics of multiple two-level atoms (qubits) in a waveguide quantum electrodynamics system, with a focus on modified superradiance effects between two or four atoms with finite delay times. Using a numerically exact matrix product approach, we explore both Markovian and non-Markovian regimes, and highlight the significant influence of time-delayed feedback effects and the clear breakdown of assuming instantaneous coupling dynamics. We first show a system composed of two spatially separated qubits, prepared in a doubly excited state (both fully excited), and provide a comprehensive study of how delayed feedback influences the collective system decay rates, as well as the quantum correlations between waveguide photons, atoms, and between atom and photons. The system is then extended to include two additional qubits located next to the initial ones (four qubits in total), and we demonstrate, by manipulating the initial excitations and the time-delay effects, how long-term quantum correlations and light-matter entangled states can be established.
In recent years, the study of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in light-matter interactions has discovered various interesting phenomenons that orient many applications. However, due to the ambient entanglement among photons and atoms, few-particle dynamics remains challenging to analyze precisely and limits the progress in several fields. In few-particle systems, different number of atoms interacting with the light field generates drastically different results, even when there is only a single photon involved in the system. The interference between individual atom’s spontaneous emission wavefunctions can cooperatively alter the effective atom-light coupling strength. Depending on the spatial distance between individual of atoms and the involved cavities in the interaction progresses, the collective spontaneous emission rate can alter drastically from superradiance, where the emission rate is enhanced to a high value proportional to the atom number, to subradiance, where the excited atom ensemble stays in a dark state with the light trapped forever. Superradiance provides a promising mechanism to create an ultra-strong light-matter coupling environment, which is an important ingredient for the design of ultra-fast optical devices, frequency comb generation and quantum mirrors. The dark state of subradiance, on the other hand, is essential for the quantum memory implementation. Also, nontrivial phenomenons also occur when multiple photons interacting with a single atom simultaneously. When a finite number of photons incidents on an atom, their scattering through an atom is highly nonlinear, and one special eigenstate component of such nonlinear process, namely photonic bound states, exhibits many interesting properties in nonlinear quantum optical systems. The photons in such state are strongly bunched with each other, as if a virtual attractive force is in effect. Also, the frequency of photons are anti-correlated so that their total frequency remains a constant value, no matter how arbitrary the frequency of any individual is. Thesefeatures benefit certain nonlinear quantum processes for quantum computing and quantum imaging. Specially for two-photon excitation imaging, the same-parity two-level fluorophore molecules suffers from extremely low excitation efficiencies due to the far off-resonant intermediate states. However, by replacing the current commonly used ultrashort laser pulse illuminations with two photon bound state photon pairs, namely photonic dimers, the efficiency can be enhanced to orders of magnitude higher. Such exceptionally high excitation efficiency can potentially bring the current in vivo deep brain imaging depth from millimeter level to several centimeters. To obtain a stable source of such photonic dimers, it is found that a laser structure with gain medium of two-photon emission materials is capable of generating the coherent state of photonic dimer and can serve as a promising light source for nonlinear quantum optical devices.