From superradiance to subradiance: exploring the many-body Dicke ladder

Abstract

We report a time-resolved study of collective emission in dense ensembles of two-level atoms. We compare, on the same sample, the build-up of superradiance and subradiance from the ensemble when driven by a strong laser. This allows us to measure the dynamics of the population of superradiant and subradiant states as a function of time. In particular we demonstrate the build up in time of subradiant states through the superradiant dynamics. This illustrates the dynamics of the many-body density matrix of superradiant ensembles of two-level atoms when departing from the ideal conditions of Dicke superradiance in which symmetry forbids the population of subradiant states.

References in corpus (2)

• Collective shift in resonant light scattering by a one-dimensional atomic chain
• Fast and efficient preparation of 1D chains and dense cold atomic clouds

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Super- and subradiance in dilute disordered cold atomic samples: observations and interpretations