Suffolk Reporter

A team of researchers led by Dominik Schneble, a professor at Stony Brook University, has identified a new regime for cooperative radiative phenomena in quantum optics. This discovery sheds light on a longstanding issue within the field. Their findings are detailed in "Nature Physics," with a supporting theoretical paper published in "Physical Review Research."

The phenomenon of spontaneous emission involves an excited atom transitioning to a lower energy state and emitting a photon. In 1954, physicist R. H. Dicke theorized that when another atom is nearby, the probability of finding an excited atom reduces to half due to superradiance and subradiance effects.

Schneble's team used ultracold atoms in a one-dimensional optical lattice to create arrays of synthetic quantum emitters that decay by releasing slow atomic matter waves instead of photons. This allowed them to explore collective radiative phenomena under novel conditions.

"Dicke’s ideas are significant in quantum information science and technology (QIST)," Schneble noted. The research allows unprecedented control over subradiant states, enabling the observation of radiation within arrays.

Former PhD students Youngshin Kim and Alfonso Lanuza contributed significantly to this work, providing insights into fundamental concepts of quantum optics. The study reveals how slow radiation tracking poses theoretical challenges but may lead to understanding unexpected collective atomic decay behaviors.

"Our results establish ultracold matter waves as versatile tools for studying many-body quantum optics," Schneble stated.

The research received support from the National Science Foundation and Stony Brook's Center for Distributed Quantum Processing (CDQP).