Dicke subradiance and thermal decoherence

Subradiance is the cooperative inhibition of the radiation by several emitters coupled to the same electromagnetic modes. It has been predicted by Dicke in 1954 and only recently observed in cold atomic vapors. Here we address the question to what extend this cooperative effect survives outside the limit of frozen two-level systems by studying the subradiant decay in an ensemble of cold atoms as a function of the temperature. Experimentally, we observe only a slight decrease of the subradiant decay time when increasing the temperature up to several millikelvins, and in particular we measure subradiant decay rates that are much smaller than the Doppler broadening. This demonstrates that subradiance is surprisingly robust against thermal decoherence. The numerical simulations are in good agreement and allow us to extrapolate the behavior of subradiance at higher temperatures.