Disorder-Induced Exponential Scaling of Subradiant Decay Rates

Quantum Physics [Submitted on 4 Apr 2026] Disorder-Induced Exponential Scaling of Subradiant Decay Rates Guoqing Tian, Xin-You Lü Subradiance, a hallmark cooperative phenomenon in waveguide QED, is characterized by a universal power-law scaling of decay rates with system size and underpins many applications in quantum information storage. Here, we demonstrate that disorder drives a sharp transition in the typical subradiant decay rates from power-law to exponential scaling, a phenomenon we term the subradiant scaling transition (SST). Through rigorous finite-size scaling analysis, we establish the SST as a critical phenomenon, characterized by a diverging characteristic scale of the decay rates at the transition point W_c=0. Physically, the SST originates from Anderson localization, manifested by the physical equivalence between the characteristic scale and the localization length of the subradiant states. Our findings provide deep insights into the interplay between disorder and collective dynamics, unifying the underlying physical mechanisms of exponentially-scaled subradiant decay rates and Anderson localization in waveguide QED. Comments: 6 pages, 4 figures Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2604.03576 [quant-ph]   (or arXiv:2604.03576v1 [quant-ph] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.03576 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Xinyou Lu Prof. [view email] [v1] Sat, 4 Apr 2026 04:01:28 UTC (501 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: quant-ph < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)