Physics

Excited state

Atomic physics

Quantum mechanics

Observable

Physical Review X

We investigate the collective decay dynamics of atoms with a generic multilevel structure (angular momenta F↔F′) coupled to two light modes of different polarization inside a cavity. In contrast to two-level atoms, we find that multilevel atoms can harbor eigenstates that are perfectly dark to cavity decay even within the subspace of permutationally symmetric states (collective Dicke manifold). The dark states arise from destructive interference between different internal transitions and are shown to be entangled. Remarkably, the superradiant decay of multilevel atoms can end up stuck in one of these dark states, where a macroscopic fraction of the atoms remains excited. This opens the door to the preparation of entangled dark states of matter through collective dissipation that are useful for quantum sensing and quantum simulation. Our predictions should be readily observable in current optical cavity experiments with alkaline-earth atoms or Raman-dressed transitions.11 MoreReceived 24 June 2021Revised 15 November 2021Accepted 20 December 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.12.011054Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasCavity quantum electrodynamicsDissipative dynamicsQuantum entanglementSpin dynamicsSuperradiance & subradiancePhysical SystemsCollective dynamicsTechniquesJaynes-Cummings modelAtomic, Molecular & Optical

Emergent Dark States from Superradiant Dynamics in Multilevel Atoms in a Cavity