Simulating superradiance from higher-order-intensity-correlation measurements: Single atoms

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that superradiance can be simulated from uncorrelated atoms using higher-order intensity correlation measurements, linking intensity interference with Dicke superradiance.

Contribution

It introduces a measurement-based method to generate superradiant states from uncorrelated atoms, bypassing the need for entanglement preparation.

Findings

Higher-order intensity correlations can simulate superradiance.

Hanbury Brown and Twiss measurements produce superradiant and subradiant states.

The approach generalizes to arbitrary atom numbers and detectors.

Abstract

Superradiance typically requires preparation of atoms in highly entangled multi-particle states, the so-called Dicke states. In this paper we discuss an alternative route where we prepare such states from initially uncorrelated atoms by a measurement process. By measuring higher order intensity intensity correlations we demonstrate that we can simulate the emission characteristics of Dicke superradiance by starting with atoms in the fully excited state. We describe the essence of the scheme by first investigating two excited atoms. Here we demonstrate how via Hanbury Brown and Twiss type of measurements we can produce Dicke superradiance and subradiance displayed commonly with two atoms in the single excited symmetric and antisymmetric Dicke states, respectively. We thereafter generalize the scheme to arbitrary numbers of atoms and detectors, and explain in detail the mechanism which leads to this result. The approach shows that Hanbury Brown and Twiss type intensity interference and the phenomenon of Dicke superradiance can be regarded as two sides of the same coin. We also present a compact result for the characteristic functional which generates all order intensity intensity correlations.