Analytical solution of the disordered Tavis-Cummings model and its Fano resonances

Abstract: $\mathcal{N}$ emitters collectively coupled to a quantised cavity mode are described by the Tavis-Cummings model. We present complete analytical solution of the model in the presence of inhomogeneous couplings and energetic disorder. We derive the exact expressions for the bright and the dark sectors that decouple the disordered model and find that, in the thermodynamic limit, the energetic disorder transforms the bright sector to Fano's model that can be easily solved. We thoroughly explore the effects of energetic disorder assuming a Gaussian distribution of emitter transition energies. We compare the Fano resonances in optical absorption and inelastic electron scattering both in the weak and the strong coupling regimes. We study the evolution of the optical absorption with an increase in the disorder strength and find that it changes the lower and upper polaritons to their broadened resonances that finally transform to a single resonance at the bare cavity photon energy, thus taking the system from the strong to the weak coupling regime. Interestingly, we learn that the Rabi splitting can exist even in the weak coupling regime while the polaritonic peaks in the strong coupling regime can represent almost excitonic states at intermediate disorder strengths. We also calculate the photon Green's function to see the effect of cavity leakage and non-radiative emitter losses and find that the polariton linewidth exhibits a minimum as a function of detuning when the cavity leakage is comparable to the Fano broadening.