Super-radiance and the widths of neutron resonances in the compound nucleus

In the 1950s the possibility of forming a "super-radiant" (SR) state in a gas of atoms confined to a volume of a size smaller than the wave length of radiation was suggested by Dicke. During the years this mechanism was applied to many phenomena in many different fields. Here it is used in the discussion of the statistics of resonance widths in a many-body system with open decay channels. Depending on the strength of the coupling to the continuum such systems show deviations from the Porter-Thomas distribution. In the limit of very strong coupling this leads to super-radiance. The results presented are important for the understanding of recent experimental data concerning the widths distribution of neutron resonances in nuclei.