Observation of localization-driven zero-threshold fermionic superradiance
2026-09-04
Understanding the interplay between collective optical response and disorder presents significant challenges in modern many-body physics. While there has been considerable interest and a wealth of theoretical work in recent years, the experimental investigation of the superradiant phase transition and disorder has been unexplored. Here, we report an observation of the localization-driven superradiance with a degenerate Fermi gas in an optical cavity. We show that the dynamics of Fermi gases exhibits Anderson localization in an intracavity incommensurate lattice. The exponential localization is directly observed in both spatial and momentum spaces. We observe the localization driving a nearly vanishing pump threshold in fermionic superradiance when the system is in the localized state. The underlying mechanism of the self-organization and the quantum statistic of the atoms are revealed by measuring the atom momentum distribution and characteristic growth of the superradiant field. Our work provides a platform for studying superradiant quantum phase transition and localization in photon-mediated long-range interacting Fermi gases.