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Optics Letters

Probing subradiant dynamics in cold atomic ensembles via population and emitted light measurements

Antoine Glicenstein, Daniel Benedicto Orenes, Apoorva Apoorva, R. Saint-Jalm, Robin Kaiser

Published Jan 21, 2026• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

In this Letter, we report on the time- and space-resolved measurement of subradiant excited state population in an ultra-cold atomic cloud of 174 Yb atoms. We use a depletion imaging technique that exploits the Λ-type internal energy structure to directly observe the time-resolved spatial distribution of excited state population. We characterize the decay dynamics of the subradiant modes using both the excited state population and scattered light intensity, finding good quantitative agreement with numerical predictions.

DOI
10.1364/ol.573926

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In this Letter, we report on the time- and space-resolved measurement of subradiant excited state population in an ultra-cold atomic cloud of 174 Yb atoms. We use a depletion imaging technique that exploits the Λ-type internal energy structure to directly observe the time-resolved spatial distribution of excited state population. We characterize the decay dynamics of the subradiant modes using both the excited state population and scattered light intensity, finding good quantitative agreement with numerical predictions.
In this letter, we report on the time- and space-resolved measurement of subradiant excited state population in an ultra-cold atomic cloud of 174Yb atoms. We use a depletion imaging technique that exploits the V-type internal energy structure of alkaline-earth-like atoms to directly observe the time-resolved spatial distribution of excited state population. We characterize the decay dynamics of the subradiant modes using both the excited state population and scattered light intensity, finding good quantitative agreement with numerical predictions from simulations of two-level atomic ensembles.
In this work we present a numerical and experimental investigation of the collective early-time decay rates of a strongly driven and optically dense cold atomic cloud. We prepare the atomic ensemble by driving the system to its steady state with varying Rabi frequencies ΩΩΩ that go from the weak Ω≪ΓΩ\ll ΓΩ≪Γ to the strong driving regime Ω≫ΓΩ\gg ΓΩ≫Γ, where ΓΓΓ is the single-atom decay rate. We investigate the early-time dynamics in the transition between the strong and weak driving regimes using: i) angular-dependent observables such as the light emitted by the cloud, and ii) global observables, i.e., the excited state population. When driving the cloud on-resonance, we find that as a function of the driving frequency, the behavior of the collected light at certain angles transitions from the single-photon subradiant regime to a superradiant regime while the behavior of the excited state population does not show superradiance. The experiment shows good agreement with numerical predictions in the regime of parameters under study.
We report the observation of subradiance in dense ensembles of cold 87 Rb atoms operating near Dicke's regime of a large number of atoms in a volume with dimensions smaller than the transition wavelength.We validate that the atom number is the only cooperativity parameter governing subradiance.We probe the dynamics in the many-body regime and support the picture that multiply excited subradiant states are built as a superposition of singly excited states that decay independently.Moreover, we implement an experimental procedure to release the excitation stored in the long-lived modes in a pulse of light.This technique is a first step towards the realization of tailored light storing based on subradiance.
Abstract We present a depletion imaging technique to map out the spatial and temporal dependency of the density distribution of an ultracold gas of Rydberg atoms. Locally resolved absorption depletion, observed through differential ground state absorption imaging of a 87 Rb cloud in presence and absence of pre-excited Rydberg atoms, reveals their projected two-dimensional distribution. By employing a closed two-level optical transition uncoupled from the Rydberg state, the highly excited atoms are preserved during imaging. We measure the excitation dynamics of the ∣ 48 S 〉 state of 87 Rb, observing a saturation of the two-dimensional Rydberg density. Such outcome can be explained by the Rydberg blockade effect which prevents resonant excitation of close-by Rydberg atoms due to strong dipolar interactions. By combining the superatom description, where atoms within a blockade radius are represented as collective excitations, with a Monte Carlo sampling, we can quantitatively model the observed excitation dynamics and infer the full three-dimensional distribution of Rydberg atoms, that can serve as a starting point for quantum simulation of many-body dynamics involving Rydberg spin systems.
We numerically study the slow (subradiant) decay of the fluorescence of motionless atoms after a weak pulsed excitation. We show that, in the linear-optics regime and for an excitation detuned by several natural linewidths, the slow decay rate can be dominated by close pairs of atoms (dimers) forming superradiant and subradiant states. However, for large-enough resonant optical depth and at later time, the dynamics can also be dominated by radiation trapping due to classical multiple scattering. Signatures of this regime are found in the spatial distribution of excited atoms, which fulfills the prediction of the diffusion equation, in the polarization of the emitted light, which is depolarized at late time, and in the spectrum, which is mainly at the atomic resonance.
We measure the spatial pattern associated with the superradiant emission from a cloud of cold 87Rb atoms using Fourier imaging. We observe a highly directional, ring-shaped emission structure, which corresponds to a single collective jump operator associated to the most superradiant mode of the ensemble. Using spatial filtering, we isolate this channel and find the typical superradiant burst with superlinear scaling of the intensity with atom number. We compare our results to two models that describe the competition between the various decay channels, finding good agreement. Our work shows that the collective jump operators introduced by Carmichael et al. [Optics Communications 179, 417 (2000)] can be measured and manipulated.