Cooperative atomic emission from a line of atoms interacting with a resonant plane surface

TL;DR

This paper investigates how cooperative atomic emission is affected by proximity to resonant surfaces, showing that surface interactions can suppress collective effects like super- and subradiance due to rapid decay into surface modes.

Contribution

The study demonstrates that cooperative effects are absent near resonant surfaces where surface modes dominate, using the coupled dipoles model and specific atomic-surface configurations.

Findings

Cooperative effects are suppressed near resonant surfaces.

Surface modes cause rapid decay overshadowing collective emission.

Proposed experimental setup with cesium atoms and metasurfaces.

Abstract

Cooperative effects such as super- and subradiance can be observed in the fluorescence emitted by a system of N atoms in vacuum, after interaction with a laser beam. In the vicinity of a dielectric or metallic surface, Casimir-Polder effects can modify collective atomic frequency shifts and decay rates. In this work, we study cooperative fluorescent emission next to resonant surfaces using the coupled dipoles model. We show that cooperative effects, expected in free space, are absent when the atoms are close to a surface whose polariton resonances coincide with the dominant atomic dipole coupling. In this case, cooperative effects are overshadowed by the very fast decay of the atomic fluorescence into surface modes. We illustrate our formalism and our results by considering a line of cesium 6D3/2 atoms in front of a sapphire surface. Finally, we propose the study of Cesium 6P3/2 atoms in front of a resonant metasurface as the most promising scenario for experimentally demonstrating the results of our study.