Disentangling Pauli blocking of atomic decay from cooperative radiation and atomic motion in a 2D Fermi gas

Abstract

The observation of Pauli blocking of atomic spontaneous decay via direct measurements of the atomic population requires the use of long-lived atomic gases where quantum statistics, atom recoil and cooperative radiative processes are all relevant. We develop a theoretical framework capable of simultaneously accounting for all these effects in a regime where prior theoretical approaches based on semi-classical non-interacting or interacting frozen atom approximations fail. We apply it to atoms in a single 2D pancake or arrays of pancakes featuring an effective $\Lambda$ level structure (one excited and two degenerate ground states). We identify a parameter window in which a factor of two extension in the atomic lifetime clearly attributable to Pauli blocking should be experimentally observable in deeply degenerate gases with $\sim 10^3$ atoms. Our predictions are supported by observation of a number-dependent excited state decay rate on the ${}^1{\mathrm{S}}_0-{}^3{\mathrm{P}}_1$ transition in ${}^{87}$Sr atoms.

6 + 6 pages, 4 + 1 figures. comments welcome

References in corpus (6)

• Microwave photonics with superconducting quantum circuits
• Systematic evaluation of an atomic clock at 2e-18 total uncertainty
• Observation of Pauli blocking in light scattering from quantum degenerate fermions
• Pauli blocking of atomic spontaneous decay
• Engineering infinite-range SU($n$) interactions with spin-orbit-coupled fermions in an optical lattice
• Spontaneous Emission in ultra-cold spin-polarised anisotropic Fermi Seas

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Pauli blocking of atomic spontaneous decay
• Directional superradiance in a driven ultracold atomic gas in free-space
• Cooperative effects in dense cold atomic gases including magnetic dipole interactions