Single particle model of a strongly driven, dense, nanoscale quantum ensemble

TL;DR

This paper investigates how interatomic interactions influence the quantum dynamics of dense nanoscale atomic ensembles under strong electromagnetic driving, introducing a simplified single-particle model that captures the essential collective behavior efficiently.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel single-particle model incorporating interaction-induced dephasing, accurately replicating the full ensemble dynamics in dense, strongly driven atomic systems.

Findings

Interatomic interactions cause rapid decoherence in the ensemble.

The single-particle model effectively reproduces full simulation results.

Interactions lead to faster decoherence than individual atomic excited state lifetimes.

Abstract

We study the effects of interatomic interactions on the quantum dynamics of a dense, nanoscale, atomic ensemble driven by a strong electromagnetic field. We use a self-consistent, mean-field technique based on the pseudo-spectral time-domain method, and a full, three-directional basis to solve the coupled Maxwell-Liouville equations. We find that interatomic interactions generate a decoherence in the state of an ensemble on a much faster timescale than the excited state lifetime of individual atoms. We present a novel single-particle model of the driven, dense ensemble by incorporating interactions into a dephasing rate. This single-particle model reproduces the essential physics of the full simulation, and is an efficient way of rapidly estimating the collective dynamics of a dense ensemble.