  The radiative decay of quantum dot (QD) excitons into surface plasmons in a
cylindrical nanowire is investigated theoretically. Maxwell's equations with
appropriate boundary conditions are solved numerically to obtain the dispersion
relations of surface plasmons. The radiative decay rate of QD excitons is found
to be greatly enhanced at certain values of the exciton bandgap. Analogous to
the decay of a two-level atom in the photonic crystal, we first point out that
such an enhanced phenomenon allows one to examine the non-Markovian dynamics of
the QD exciton. Besides, due to the one dimensional propagating feature of
nanowire surface plasmons, remote entangled states can be generated via
super-radiance and may be useful in future quantum information processing.
