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Physical Review Letters

Superradiant Emission Dynamics of an Optically Thin Material Sample in a Short-Decay-Time Optical Cavity

Christoph M. Greiner, B. Boggs, THOMAS W. MOSSBERG

Published Oct 30, 2000• 45 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report observations of optical superradiant emission and the atomic evolution it drives under conditions closely approximating those originally envisioned in the classic work of Dicke [Phys. Rev. 93, 99 (1954)]. Our experiment involves an optically thin solid sample in a short-lifetime optical cavity whose homogeneous coherence is cryogenically stabilized. Pulsed coherent excitation initiates superradiant emission which subsequently drives the sample to higher or lower states of coherence. Suppression of dephasing via cryogenics and propagation effects through use of an optically thin sample and cavity provides one of the clearest and cleanest examples of Dicke superradiance yet reported.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.85.3793

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We report observations of optical superradiant emission and the atomic evolution it drives under conditions closely approximating those originally envisioned in the classic work of Dicke [Phys. Rev. 93, 99 (1954)]. Our experiment involves an optically thin solid sample in a short-lifetime optical cavity whose homogeneous coherence is cryogenically stabilized. Pulsed coherent excitation initiates superradiant emission which subsequently drives the sample to higher or lower states of coherence. Suppression of dephasing via cryogenics and propagation effects through use of an optically thin sample and cavity provides one of the clearest and cleanest examples of Dicke superradiance yet reported.
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.
Summary form only given. The radiative behavior of an ensemble of correlated atoms can be dramatically different from that of a single atom. Correlation, for example, can give rise to sub- or superradiant emission. Experimental studies of the fascinating correlative effects expected have been severely constrained by difficulties in creating suitably correlated media and by propagation effects that perturb correlation during emission. We have found that optical cavities of moderate reflectivity and very short ring-down time can be employed to "accelerate" the superradiant process and bring it to dominance in media sufficiently dilute so that propagation effects both in excitation and emission are absent. For the first time, it is possible to observe strong optical superradiance under the pure and simple conditions that were originally envisioned. Note that superradiance here does not refer to the emission of initially inverted atomic samples (i.e. superfluorescence), but to cooperative emission from samples of atoms prepared in correlated superposition states. Moreover, the cavity accelerated superradiant system is found to display heretofore unknown nonlinear behavior in terms of its effect on the "area" of injected optical pulses.
We investigate the evolution of the second-order temporal coherence during the emission of a superradiant pulse by an elongated cloud of cold Rb atoms in free space. To do so, we measure the two-times intensity correlation function g_{N}^{(2)}(t_{1},t_{2}) following the pulsed excitation of the cloud. By monitoring g_{N}^{(2)}(t,t) during the pulse, we observe the establishment of second-order coherence, and contrast it with the situation where the cloud is initially prepared in a steady state. We compare our findings to the predictions of the Dicke model, using an effective atom number to account for finite size effects, finding that the model reproduces the observed trend at early time. For longer times, we observe a subradiant decay, a feature that goes beyond Dicke's model. Finally, we measure the g_{N}^{(2)}(t_{1},t_{2}) at different times and observe the appearance of anticorrelations during the pulse that are not present when starting from a steady state.
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.
Due to its coherence properties and high optical depth, a Bose–Einstein condensate [BEC] provides an ideal setting to investigate collective atom-light interactions. Superradiant light scattering [SLS] in a BEC is a fascinating example of such an interaction. It is an analogous process to Dicke superradiance, in which an electronically inverted sample decays collectively, leading to the emission of one or more light pulses in a well-defined direction. Through time-resolved measurements of the superradiant light pulses emitted by an end-pumped BEC, we study the close connection of SLS with Dicke superradiance. A 1D model of the system yields good agreement with the experimental data and shows that the dynamics result from the structures that build up in the light and matter-wave fields along the BEC. This paves the way for exploiting the atom–photon correlations generated by the superradiance.
The problem of superradiant emission from a small atomic system is treated under conditions in which the effects of inhomogeneous broadening are important, as in a solid. The treatment is semiclassical, with the assumption that all atoms see the same electromagnetic field. A set of coupled integrodifferential equations is obtained characterizing the state of each atom of resonant frequency \ensuremath{\omega} at time ttt. It is found that, in general, atoms of different frequencies evolve differently in time, whether or not they start from the same initial state. The effect of the inhomogeneous broadening is generally to delay the onset and to reduce the amplitude of the superradiant pulse. Some effects of inhomogeneous broadening are manifest even when the inhomogeneous lifetime is much longer than the usual superradiance time. When the atomic system starts in the ground state and is then exposed to a coherent excitation pulse, superradiant effects can appear even when the inhomogeneous lifetime is very short compared with the usual superradiance time.