Tuning the collective decay of two entangled emitters by means of a nearby surface

Abstract

We consider the radiative properties of a system of two identical correlated atoms interacting with the electromagnetic field in its vacuum state in the presence of a generic dielectric environment. We suppose that the two emitters are prepared in a symmetric or antisymmetric superposition of one ground state and one excited state and we evaluate the transition rate to the collective ground state, showing distinctive cooperative radiative features. Using a macroscopic quantum electrodynamics approach to describe the electromagnetic field, we first obtain an analytical expression for the decay rate of the two entangled two-level atoms in terms of the Green's tensor of the generic external environment. We then investigate the emission process when both atoms are in free space and subsequently when a perfectly reflecting mirror is present, showing how the boundary affects the physical features of the superradiant and subradiant emission by the two coupled emitters. The possibility to control and tailor radiative processes is also discussed.

11 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Enhanced Quantum Interface with Collective Ion-Cavity Coupling
• Scalable solid-state quantum processor using subradiant two-atom states
• Superradiance, subradiance, and suppressed superradiance of dipoles near a metal interface

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• Collective single-photon emission and energy transfer in thin-layer dielectric and plasmonic systems
• Collective spontaneous emission of two entangled atoms near an oscillating mirror
• Dynamical atom-wall Casimir-Polder effect after a sudden change of the atomic position