We investigate the spontaneous emission of a two-level system coupled to a photonic waveguide, showing that dynamical dephasing in the photon modes profoundly alters the decay law. In the absence of dephasing, the emitter displays conventional exponential decay followed by a long-time power-law tail - observable only at extremely low survival probabilities. Strikingly, when dephasing is introduced, a robust power-law decay emerges already at short times, driven by photon diffusion in the dynamically disordered environment rather than spectral edge effects. These results reveal a novel, decoherence-induced mechanism for non-exponential spontaneous emission in waveguide QED platforms.

Breaking the Exponential: Decoherence-Driven Power-Law Spontaneous Emission in Waveguide Quantum Electrodynamics

Longhi S.
2026-01-01

Abstract

We investigate the spontaneous emission of a two-level system coupled to a photonic waveguide, showing that dynamical dephasing in the photon modes profoundly alters the decay law. In the absence of dephasing, the emitter displays conventional exponential decay followed by a long-time power-law tail - observable only at extremely low survival probabilities. Strikingly, when dephasing is introduced, a robust power-law decay emerges already at short times, driven by photon diffusion in the dynamically disordered environment rather than spectral edge effects. These results reveal a novel, decoherence-induced mechanism for non-exponential spontaneous emission in waveguide QED platforms.
2026
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
2601.05884v1.pdf

accesso aperto

Descrizione: file pdf
: Pre-Print (o Pre-Refereeing)
Dimensione 4.4 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
4.4 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/1322570
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 0
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 0
  • OpenAlex 1
social impact