Fourier imaging of collective spontaneous emission modes in superradiant cold atomic clouds
Researchers used Fourier imaging to study superradiant emission from cold Rubidium atoms. They found a highly directional, ring-shaped emission pattern corresponding to a single collective jump operator associated with the most superradiant mode. This reveals that specific collective modes dominate the dynamics, leading to bursts of light rather than simple exponential decay, and provides tools for designing new light-matter interfaces.