Dissociation slowdown by collective optical response under strong coupling conditions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strong coupling between diatomic molecules and an optical cavity can transiently slow down photodissociation, revealing a unique quantum effect without classical analogs.

Contribution

It demonstrates that collective optical response under strong coupling conditions can significantly slow molecular dissociation at polaritonic frequencies, a novel quantum phenomenon.

Findings

Dissociation slows down at polaritonic frequencies under strong coupling.

The effect is transient and lacks a classical analog.

Numerical simulations confirm the impact of collective optical response.

Abstract

We consider an ensemble of diatomic molecules resonantly coupled to an optical cavity under strong coupling conditions at normal incidence. Photodissociation dynamics is examined via direct numerical integration of the coupled Maxwell-Schrodinger equations with molecular ro-vibrational degrees of freedom explicitly taken into account. It is shown that the dissociation is significantly affected (slowed down) when the system is driven at its polaritonic frequencies. The observed effect is demonstrated to be of transient nature and has no classical analog. An intuitive explanation of the dissociation slowdown at polaritonic frequencies is proposed.