The quantum state of light in collective spontaneous emission

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum states of light emitted during collective spontaneous emission, revealing how quantum correlations can be preserved and tailored to generate specific photonic states for quantum technologies.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive framework for understanding the multi-mode quantum state of light in collective emission, including the effects of emitter interactions, positions, and non-Markovian dynamics.

Findings

Quantum correlations can be transferred to emitted light under certain conditions.

The work demonstrates the creation of photonic states like GKP and Schrödinger-cat states.

Multi-mode nature of emission influences the design of quantum light sources.

Abstract

Collective spontaneous emission occurs when multiple quantum emitters decay into common radiation modes, resulting in enhanced or suppressed emission. Here, we find the quantum state of light collectively emitted from emitters exhibiting quantum correlations. We unveil under what conditions the quantum correlations are not lost during the emission but are instead transferred to the output light. Under these conditions, the inherent nonlinearity of the emitters can be tailored to create desired photonic states in the form of traveling single-mode pulses, such as Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill and Schr\"odinger-cat states. To facilitate such predictions, our work reveals the multi-mode nature of collective spontaneous emission, capturing the role of the emitters' positions, losses, interactions, and beyond-Markov dynamics on the emitted quantum state of light. We present manifestations of these effects in different physical systems, with examples in cavity-QED, waveguide-QED, and atomic arrays. Our findings suggest new paths for creating and manipulating multi-photon quantum light for bosonic codes in continuous-variable-based quantum computation, communications, and sensing.