We quantitatively analyze superradiance (collective emission) in a three-dimensional array of qubits without imposing any restrictions on the size of the sample. We show that even when the spacing between the qubits become arbitrarily large, superradiance produces an error rate on each qubit that scales with the total number of qubits. This is because the sum of the norms of the effective Hamiltonians that decoheres each qubit scales with the total number of qubits and is, therefore, unbounded. In three spatial dimensions, the sum of the norms scales as
N2/3 where
N is the total number of qubits in the computer. Because the sum of the Hamiltonian norms are unbounded, the introduced errors are outside the applicability of the threshold theorem.
Superradiance and subradiance are collective effects that emerge from coherent interactions between quantum emitters. Due to their many-body nature, theoretical studies of extended samples with length larger than the atomic transition wavelength are usually restricted to their early-time behavior or to the few-excitation limit. We use herein a mean-field approach to reduce the complex many-body system to an effective two-atom master equation that includes all correlations up to second order and that can be numerically propagated in time. We find that three-dimensional and two-dimensional inverted atomic arrays sustain superradiance below a critical lattice spacing and quantify the scaling of the superradiant peak for both dimensionalities. Finally, we study the late-time dynamics of the system and demonstrate that a subradiant phase appears before the system finally relaxes.