Far-infrared superradiance in methyl fluoride

Superradiance has been observed in the far infrared on a pure-rotational transition in optically pumped methyl fluoride. Observed behavior included single pulses, shot-to-shot fluctuation, dependence on the pump pulse length, preferential polarization, and longitudinally asymmetric emission (the onset of swept-gain superradiance). A numerical solution of the Maxwell-Bloch equations including degeneracy, Doppler broadening, and population and polarization source terms, and taking into account all the transitions which might possibly contribute, produces results which agree well with the observations. To do this, only a single free parameter is used; this is a factor of about 10 multiplying the expected initial tipping angle (which is of the order of $N^{\frac{-1\mathrm{}}{2}}$).