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arXiv:2601.05989 · Quantum

From Superradiance to Superabsorption: An Exact Treatment of Non-Markovian Cooperative Radiation

Ignacio González, Ángel Rivas

quant-phSubmitted Jan 9, 2026• Announced Jan 12, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Jul 3, 2026 (v3)
v1 · Jan 9, 2026v2 · Jan 29, 2026v3 · Jul 3, 2026
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Abstract

We investigate the emergence of cooperative radiation phenomena in ensembles of two-level atoms coupled to a lossy resonant cavity beyond the Markovian and mean-field approximations. By deriving a complete analytical solution for the two-emitter case and employing a numerically exact method for larger ensembles, we characterize the full transition from Markovian to non-Markovian collective dynamics for systems of up to $10^3$ emitters. Our results reveal three distinct regimes: a Markovian phase exhibiting the standard superradiant burst, a non-Markovian phase featuring spontaneous superabsorption of the emitted field, and a critical regime marked by pulsed collective emission. We show that the critical spectral width separating these behaviors increases monotonically with the number of emitters, demonstrating that environmental memory effects can be enhanced by cooperativity. Finally, we find that the superradiant scaling of the peak intensity progressively degrades with increasing system size, approaching a subquadratic law in the limit of a perfect cavity. In this regime, spontaneous superabsorption emerges as a distinct manifestation of non-Markovian cooperativity.

Journal reference
Quantum 10, 2159 (2026)
DOI
10.22331/q-2026-07-15-2159
Comments
Color figures, minor errors corrected, new and updated figures, new appendix, version accepted for publication

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We investigate the emergence of cooperative radiation phenomena in ensembles of two-level atoms coupled to a lossy resonant cavity beyond the Markovian and mean-field approximations. By deriving a complete analytical solution for the two-emitter case and employing a numerically exact method for larger ensembles, we characterize the full transition from Markovian to non-Markovian collective dynamics for systems of up to 10310^3103 emitters. Our results reveal three distinct regimes: a Markovian phase exhibiting the standard superradiant burst, a non-Markovian phase featuring spontaneous superabsorption of the emitted field, and a critical regime marked by pulsed collective emission. We show that the critical spectral width separating these behaviors increases monotonically with the number of emitters, demonstrating that environmental memory effects can be enhanced by cooperativity. Finally, we find that the superradiant scaling of the peak intensity progressively degrades with increasing system size, approaching a subquadratic law in the limit of a perfect cavity. In this regime, spontaneous superabsorption emerges as a distinct manifestation of non-Markovian cooperativity.
Fully-excited two-level atoms separated by less than the transition wavelength cooperatively emit light in a short burst, a phenomenon called superradiance by R. Dicke in 1954. The burst is characterized by a maximum intensity scaling with the square of the number of atoms NNN and a temporal width reduced by NNN compared to the single atom spontaneous decay time. Both effects are usually attributed to a synchronization of the electric dipole moments of the atoms occurring during the process of light emission. Contrary to this explanation, it was recently shown by use of a quantum path description that the peak intensity results from the quantum correlations among the atoms when occupying symmetric Dicke states. Here we investigate from this perspective the temporal evolution of the ensemble, starting in the small sample limit, i.e., when the atoms have mutual separations much smaller than the transition wavelength λλλ and pass down the ladder of symmetric Dicke states. In addition, we explore the temporal evolution for the case of non-interacting atoms with mutual separations much larger than λλλ. We show that in this case a similar superradiant burst of the emitted radiation is observed if the quantum correlations of the atoms are generated by conditional photon measurements retaining the atomic ensemble within or close to the symmetric subspace.
Many-particle quantum systems often give rise to exotic behaviors in their nonequilibrium dynamics that are rather challenging to reveal with analytical methods or with classical computation. Here, we consider the case of a system of many quantum emitters coupled through a radiation bath. By adopting an efficient mapping of the bosonic modes onto a set of quantum bits, we implement quantum circuits, compatible with NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum) era systems, that allow us to investigate the dynamics of the ensemble as a function of various parameters, including the number of emitters, the spectral inhomogeneity in the system, the emission lifetime of independent emitters, and the spatial separation between emitters. The quantum algorithms afford us the capacity to precisely track the emergence of cooperative dynamics, manifested through superradiant emission, as the system is tuned towards optimal coupling with respect to various parameters. We are particularly able to characterize superradiant emission in an inhomogeneous ensemble as a function of the linewidth of the individual emitters. These quantum algorithms avoid approximations performed in conventional studies of many-emitter systems and provide a robust and intuitive characterization. Despite being limited to a small number of qubits, the present calculations are found to provide a reliable characterization validated by comparison with analytical solutions and classical computation results in their respective regimes of validity. These findings indicate that the approach can be employed to effectively simulate a broad variety of many-emitter systems.
Fully excited two-level atoms separated by less than the transition wavelength cooperatively emit light in a short burst, a phenomenon called superradiance by R. Dicke in 1954 [Phys. Rev. 93, 99 (1954)]. The burst is characterized by a maximum intensity scaling with the square of the number of atoms NNN and a temporal width reduced by NNN compared to the single atom spontaneous decay time. Both effects are usually attributed to a synchronization of the electric dipole moments of the atoms occurring during the process of light emission. Contrary to this explanation, it was recently shown by use of a quantum path description that the peak intensity results from the quantum correlations among the atoms when occupying symmetric Dicke states. Here we investigate from this perspective the temporal evolution of the ensemble, starting in the small sample limit, i.e., when the atoms have mutual separations much smaller than the transition wavelength $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ and pass down the ladder of symmetric Dicke states. In addition, we explore the temporal evolution for the case of distant noninteracting atoms with mutual separations much larger than $\ensuremath{\lambda}$. We show that in this case a similar superradiant burst of the emitted radiation is observed if the quantum correlations of the atoms are generated by conditional photon measurements retaining the atomic ensemble within or close to the symmetric subspace.
Ordered atomic arrays with subwavelength lattice spacing emit light collectively. For fully inverted atomic arrays, this results in an initial burst of radiation and a fast buildup of coherences between the atoms at initial times. Based on a cumulant expansion of the equations of motion, we derive exact analytical expressions for the emission properties and numerically analyze the full many-body problem resulting in the collective decay process for unprecedented system sizes of up to a few hundred atoms. We benchmark the cumulant expansion approach and show that it correctly captures the cooperative dynamics resulting in superradiance. For fully inverted arrays, this allows us to extract the scaling of the superradiant peak with particle number. For partially excited arrays where no coherences are shared among atoms, we also determine the critical number of excitations required for the emergence of superradiance in one- and two-dimensional geometries. In addition, we study the robustness of superradiance in the case of non-unit filling and position disorder.
An array of initially excited emitters coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide exhibits superradiant decay under the Born-Markov approximation, manifested as a coherent burst of photons in the output field. In this work, we employ tensor-network methods to investigate its non-Markovian dynamics induced by finite time delays in photon exchange among the emitters. We find that the superradiant burst breaks into a structured train of correlated photons, each intensity peak corresponding to a specific photon number. We quantify the emitter-photon and emitter-emitter entanglement generated during this process and show that the latter emerges in the long-time limit, as part of the excitation becomes trapped within the emitters' singlet subspace. We finally consider the decay of the system's most radiant state, the symmetric Dicke state, and show that time delay can lead to decay rates exceeding those predicted by the Markovian approximation.
Cooperative radiation emitted by an ensemble of three-level optical systems with a doublet in the ground state (Λ scheme), which is placed into a cyclic cavity, is studied theoretically. In contrast to the two-level model of emitters, this process with such a configuration of operating transitions may occur without population inversion in the whole, if the doublet is prepared at the initial instant in a superposition (coherent) state. In the ideal case of a Hamilton system, in which the cavity losses and relaxation in the radiator ensemble are disregarded, the conservation laws are derived, which allow a substantial reduction of the dimension of the phase space of the model (ℝ 11 → ℝ 5 ) and the application of methods of dynamics of nonlinear systems for analyzing the three-level superradiance under these conditions. The possibility of different (both quasiperiodic and chaotic) scenarios of the three-level superradiance is demonstrated on the basis of Poincaré’s mappings. Global bifurcation of the system upon a transition from the conventional superradiance regime to inversionless one is revealed. The effects of cavity losses, as well as homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadening in the system of radiators on the regularities found are also discussed.