Directed Spontaneous Emission from $N$-atom Extended Ensemble

TL;DR

This paper provides a unified physics framework for photon emission and absorption across optical to nuclear gamma-ray wavelengths, highlighting how different parameters influence coherence, interference, and emission characteristics in large atomic ensembles.

Contribution

It develops a comprehensive treatment of photon emission phenomena across the spectrum, clarifying differences between optical and X-ray scattering in extended atomic systems.

Findings

Differences in photon wavelength and atomic spacing lead to distinct emission behaviors.

Forward-peaked superradiance occurs when photon wavelength is comparable to atomic spacing.

Angular distribution and speedup effects vary significantly between 2D and 3D scatterers.

Abstract

Coherence and interference play crucial roles in emission and absorption of photons to and from large systems with many atoms. Confusion has arisen because nuclear X-ray physicists and atomic quantum-optics physicists do not understand one another's individual descriptions of related phenomena. Basic physics same for all wave lengths from optical to nuclear gamma ray photons. But different languages are used to describe this physics in different domains. Crucial parameters vary over many orders of magnitude and what is intuitive or counterintuitive varies widely. Differences in parameters arising from differences between coherent emission effects in different domains produce very different results. Unified general treatment of the entire photon spectrum makes basic physics intelligible to all. In the optical region the mean distance between the scattering atoms is much longer than the photon wave length, Dicke superradiant scattering is isotropic and multiple scattering, Fano couplings are important and the lifetimes of intermediate stats are sufficiently short to be negligible. In X-ray scattering the mean distance between atoms is comparable to the photon wave length, Dicke superradiance is concentrated in a forward peak, multiple scattering and Fano effects are negligible, lifetimes are measurably long, speedup shortening the lifetime is important and most of the radiation is not elastically scattered but lost to absorption. Explicit calculations for a one-dimensional array shows the great difference between the case where the photon wave length is much shorter or comparable to the distance between nearest neighbors. A full investigation of the angular distribution and speedup of the intensity for two and three-dimensional scatterers give very different results for the two cases.