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Collective early-time spontaneous decay of a cold atomic ensemble from the single to multiple excitation regime

Daniel Benedicto Orenes1,*, Naudson Lucas Lopes Matias1, Apoorva Apoorva1, Antoine Glicenstein2, Raphaël Saint-Jalm1, and Robin Kaiser1,†

  • *Contact author: daniel.benedicto-orenes@univ-cotedazur.fr
  • †Contact author: robin.kaiser@inphyni.cnrs.fr
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033199 – Published 18 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/kqr8-h1m5

Abstract

In this work, we present a numerical and experimental investigation of the collective early-time decay rates of an optically dense cold atomic cloud supporting a large number of excitations. We prepare the atomic ensemble by driving the system to its steady state with varying Rabi frequencies Ω that go from the low excitation Ω≪Γ to the multiple excitation regime Ω≫Γ, where Γ is the single-atom decay rate. We investigate the early-time dynamics in the transition between the strong and weak driving regimes using (1) angular-dependent observables, such as the light emitted by the cloud, and (2) global observables, i.e., the excited-state population. When driving the cloud on resonance, we find that as a function of the driving frequency, the behavior of the collected light at certain angles transitions from the single-photon subradiant regime to a superradiant regime, while the behavior of the excited-state population does not show superradiance. The experiment shows good agreement with numerical predictions at the chosen angle of observation in the regime of parameters under study.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033199– Published 18 August, 2026
  • Received 24 November 2025
  • Accepted 4 May 2026
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