Experimental Upper Bound on Superradiance Emission from Mn12 Acetate

Abstract

We used a Josephson junction as a radiation detector to look for evidence of the emission of electromagnetic radiation during magnetization avalanches in a crystal assembly of Mn_12-Acetate. The crystal assembly exhibits avalanches at several magnetic fields in the temperature range from 1.8 to 2.6 K with durations of the order of 1 ms. Although a recent study shows evidence of electromagnetic radiation bursts during these avalanches [J. Tejada, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. {\bf 84}, 2373 (2004)], we were unable to detect any significant radiation at well-defined frequencies. A control experiment with external radiation pulses allows us to determine that the energy released as radiation during an avalanche is less than 1 part in 10^4 of the total energy released. In addition, our avalanche data indicates that the magnetization reversal process does not occur uniformly throughout the sample.

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