Coherent control of quantum topological states of light in Fock-state lattices

Abstract

Topological photonics provides a novel platform to explore topological physics beyond traditional electronic materials and stimulates promising applications in topologically protected light transport and lasers. Classical degrees of freedom such as polarizations and wavevectors are routinely used to synthesize topological light modes. Beyond the classical regime, inherent quantum nature of light gives birth to a wealth of fundamentally distinct topological states, which offer topological protection in quantum information processing. Here we implement such experiments on topological states of quantized light in a superconducting circuit, on which three resonators are tunably coupled to a gmon qubit. We construct one and two-dimensional Fock-state lattices where topological transport of zero-energy states, strain induced pseudo-Landau levels, valley Hall effect and Haldane chiral edge currents are demonstrated. Our study extends the topological states of light to the quantum regime, bridges topological phases of condensed matter physics with circuit quantum electrodynamics, and offers a new freedom in controlling the quantum states of multiple resonators.

Two-particle topological Thouless spin pump

“…They have been employed in experiments using single particle states such as spin [34][35][36], momentum [37][38][39], harmonic oscillator [40], and rotational [41] states of particles. Recently, many-body cavity modes of light have also been used to simulate both one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) lattices [42] and many-body states of matter have been suggested in constructing synthetic lattices [43,44]. The goal of this paper is to use synthetic dimensions to highlight a different way to simulate quantized motion -one without real-space lattices.…”