Robust Superradiance and Spontaneous Spin Ordering in Disordered Waveguide Quantum Electrodynamics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Xin H. H., Malz, Daniel, Rabl, Peter
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhang, Xin H. H.
Malz, Daniel
Rabl, Peter
author_facet Zhang, Xin H. H.
Malz, Daniel
Rabl, Peter
contents We study the collective emission of a disordered array of $N$ excited two-level atoms into a one-dimensional photonic waveguide. In the perfectly ordered case, where atoms are spaced by exact integer multiples of the wavelength, the system exhibits the characteristic superradiant burst with a peak emission rate scaling as $N^2$. Using large-scale semiclassical simulations, we find that this key signature of superradiance remains asymptotically robust under strong spatial and spectral disorder, but also exhibits subtle finite-size scaling toward this limit. To explain our observations, we provide an analytical variational estimate for the maximal decay rate, which tightly bounds the numerical results and reveals how disorder shapes the collective decay. Specifically, we find that even in the presence of strong disorder, the spins tend to self-organize spontaneously according to their locations, which overall optimizes constructive interference effects and explains the emergence of mirror-asymmetric correlations in superradiant decay. These findings resolve important open questions regarding the existence and nature of superradiance in strongly disordered arrays and offer valuable insights for understanding collective quantum optical phenomena in realistic systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_13671
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Robust Superradiance and Spontaneous Spin Ordering in Disordered Waveguide Quantum Electrodynamics
Zhang, Xin H. H.
Malz, Daniel
Rabl, Peter
Quantum Physics
Atomic Physics
Optics
We study the collective emission of a disordered array of $N$ excited two-level atoms into a one-dimensional photonic waveguide. In the perfectly ordered case, where atoms are spaced by exact integer multiples of the wavelength, the system exhibits the characteristic superradiant burst with a peak emission rate scaling as $N^2$. Using large-scale semiclassical simulations, we find that this key signature of superradiance remains asymptotically robust under strong spatial and spectral disorder, but also exhibits subtle finite-size scaling toward this limit. To explain our observations, we provide an analytical variational estimate for the maximal decay rate, which tightly bounds the numerical results and reveals how disorder shapes the collective decay. Specifically, we find that even in the presence of strong disorder, the spins tend to self-organize spontaneously according to their locations, which overall optimizes constructive interference effects and explains the emergence of mirror-asymmetric correlations in superradiant decay. These findings resolve important open questions regarding the existence and nature of superradiance in strongly disordered arrays and offer valuable insights for understanding collective quantum optical phenomena in realistic systems.
title Robust Superradiance and Spontaneous Spin Ordering in Disordered Waveguide Quantum Electrodynamics
topic Quantum Physics
Atomic Physics
Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.13671