Abstract
The interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) is an efficient electronic decay process of systems embedded in environment. In ICD, the excess energy of an excited atom A is efficiently utilized to ionize a neighboring atom B. In quantum light, an ensemble of atoms A form polaritonic states which can undergo ICD with B. Here we investigate the impact of quantum light on ICD and show that this process is strongly altered compared to classical ICD. The ICD rate depends sensitively on the atomic distribution and orientation of the ensemble. It is stressed that in contrast to superposition states formed by a laser, forming polaritons by a cavity enables to control the emergence and suppression, as well as the efficiency of ICD.
Highlights
The interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) is an efficient electronic decay process of systems embedded in environment
There is a resemblance between polaritonic states and coherent superposition states of an ensemble formed by a laser, which will be addressed after we have introduced and applied the ICD to polaritonic states
Since all atoms are of the same kind and we assume the cavity mode to be resonant with an excited atom A*, it is straightforward to find the energies and eigenstates of the above Hamiltonian in the single-excitation space
Summary
The interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) is an efficient electronic decay process of systems embedded in environment. An ensemble of atoms A form polaritonic states which can undergo ICD with B. ICD becomes operative once the excess energy of an excited atom or molecule suffices to ionize a neighbor[1]. The interaction of atoms and molecules with quantized radiation field like that inside a cavity has lead to an active new area of research, which opens up many possibilities to manipulate their properties, to enhance or suppress available mechanisms, and to mediate new ones. Among the long list of possibilities, we mention control of photochemical reactivity[22,23], control of chemical reactions by varying the properties of the quantized field[24,25,26,27], enhance charge[28,29,30,31], and energy-transfer[30,32] processes, and increase non-adiabatic effects in molecules[26,33,34]. A cavity is a suitable platform to investigate ICD as the entanglement is naturally produced in the polaritonic states
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