Mesoscopic Cooperative Emission From a Disordered System

Abstract

We study theoretically the cooperative light emission from a system of $N\gg 1$ classical oscillators confined within a volume with spatial scale, $L$, much smaller than the radiation wavelength, $\lambda_0=2\pi c/\omega_0$. We assume that the oscillators frequencies are randomly distributed around a central frequency, $\omega_0$, with some characteristic width, $\Omega\ll\omega_0$. In the absence of disorder, that is $\Omega=0$, the cooperative emission spectrum is composed of a narrow subradiant peak superimposed on a wide superradiant band. When $\Omega\neq 0$, we demonstrate that if $N$ is large enough, the subradiant peak is not simply broadened by the disorder but rather splits into a system of random narrow peaks. We estimate the spectral width of these peaks as a function of $N, L, \Omega$, and $\lambda_0$. We also estimate the amplitude of this mesoscopic structure in the emission spectrum.