Title: Subwavelength atomic arrays for superradiance studies

Speaker: Dr Luisa Loranca, Cold-Atom Quantum System Research Team, RIKEN

Abstract:
Spontaneous emission is at the heart of many experiments of atomic physics, however it is still a complex mechanism that is still studied today. Each transition has its own natural decay however, due to collective effects the electron in the excited state can decay faster; this is known as superradiance (SR). To study SR and other collective phenomena, we need to bring two or more particles in the near-Dicke regime, i.e. r<<λ/2π. In our group, Cold-Atom Quantum System Research Team at RIKEN, we are developing a new experiment where we aim to study this kind of behaviour using atoms in optical tweezers. However, we chose an unconventional way of bringing the atoms together: throwing them into each other and perform sub-ns pulses to interact with the atoms faster than the decay rate. In this talk I present the motivations of our project, the experimental methods that we are implementing and the status of our experiment.