Impact of cavity on interatomic Coulombic decay

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. Interatomic Coulombic decay, ICD, is commonly observed in systems weakly bound to different environments. Here the authors discuss the ICD in an electromagnetic cavity and show that the entanglement of atoms can change ICD rates substantially and be used to control the ICD process.