Fig. 4: Theory prediction for the superatom dynamics.

All figures are at κ = 0.35 μs⁻¹. a Total number of subtracted photons vs. time, i.e. the sum of the dark-state population and Raman emitted photons, for a single superatom at R_in = 5 photons μs⁻¹ and dephasing rate γ_D = 2.4 μs⁻¹. Shaded regions indicate one standard deviation of the number of Raman emitted photons. b Dark-state population, here equal to the photon absorption probability, after driving a single superatom for τ = 3 μs without Raman decay Γ = 0. The solid line indicates the 90% level. The dashed horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines correspond to \(\sqrt{\kappa {R}_{{\rm{in}}}}\tau =\pi /2\), \(\exp (-{\gamma }_{D}\tau )=0.1\) and \(\exp (-4\kappa {R}_{{\rm{in}}}\tau /{\gamma }_{D})=0.1\), respectively. c Mean dark-state population in a chain of 1, 2, 4 and 8 superatoms after driving the superatoms for τ = 4 μs at a constant rate of R_in = 5 photons μs⁻¹.