Spontaneous emission in a coupled cavity array featuring random-dimer disorder

Abstract

We study the emission dynamics of a two-level atom interacting with a large array of coupled cavities via the central site. The local frequencies of the cavities follow a random dimer model, where two distinct frequency values are sorted across the array, with one value occurring only between pairs of adjacent sites. This configuration results in the coexistence of localized and quasi-extended field modes, which we exploit to measure the Markovian character of the amplitude-damping channel. By tuning the correlation length of the disorder, we observe a transition from non-Markovian to Markovian decay at specific values of the atomic frequency. In this setup, the atom serves as a probe for the localization properties of the array, establishing a connection between the theory of open quantum systems and quantum transport in low-dimensional systems.