Spontaneous Emission from a Fractal Vacuum

Abstract

Spontaneous emission of a quantum emitter coupled to a QED vacuum with a deterministic fractal structure of its spectrum is considered. We show that the decay probability does not follow a Wigner-Weisskopf exponential decrease but rather an overall power law behavior with a rich oscillatory structure, both depending on the local fractal properties of the vacuum spectrum. These results are obtained by giving first a general perturbative derivation for short times. Then we propose a simplified model which retains the main features of a fractal spectrum to establish analytic expressions valid for all time scales. Finally, we discuss the case of a Fibonacci cavity and its experimental relevance to observe these results.