Interaction signatures and non-Gaussian photon states from a strongly driven atomic ensemble coupled to a nanophotonic waveguide

Abstract

We study theoretically a laser-driven one-dimensional chain of atoms interfaced with the guided optical modes of a nanophotonic waveguide. The period of the chain and the orientation of the laser field can be chosen such that emission occurs predominantly into a single guided mode. We find that the fluorescence excitation line shape changes as the number of atoms is increased, eventually undergoing a splitting that provides evidence for the waveguide-mediated all-to-all interactions. Remarkably, in the regime of strong driving the light emitted into the waveguide is non-classical with a significant negativity of the associated Wigner function. We show that both the emission properties and the non-Gaussian character of the light are robust against voids in the atom chain, enabling the experimental study of these effects with present-day technology. Our results offer a route towards novel types of fiber-coupled quantum light sources and an interesting perspective for probing the physics of interacting atomic ensembles through light.

Nonexponential decay of a collective excitation in an atomic ensemble coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide

“…Recently, the efficient coupling of atoms to nanophotonic structures in low dimensions [34] has enabled the study of almost perfectly one-dimensional systems that show infinite-range interactions [35] but also exotic chiral, coherent light-matter interactions which depend on the polarization of the incoming light [36]. Such waveguides have a high potential to generate nonclassical states of light [37][38][39].…”

Dynamical Phases and Quantum Correlations in an Emitter-Waveguide System with Feedback

“…In this work we discuss the many-body phases of a light-matter system that is composed of emitters coupled to light modes which propagate in a waveguide. This setup, which is subject matter of many current experimental studies [37,38], has the appeal that the manybody dynamics can be reduced to a small set of degrees of freedom, and thus lends itself to a largely analytical treatment [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. We show that by implementing an instantaneous feedback protocol that relies on the mea-FIG.…”

“…. , in fact suppresses such unwanted decay channels [45,47]. Under these conditions and employing the Born-Markov approximation, the dynamics of the emitter-waveguide system is described by a particularly simple master equation:…”

Dynamical phases and quantum correlations in an emitter-waveguide system with feedback

“…In this work we discuss the many-body phases of a lightmatter system that is composed of emitters coupled to light modes which propagate in a waveguide. This setup, which is subject matter of many current experimental studies [37,38], has the appeal that the many-body dynamics can be reduced to a small set of degrees of freedom, and thus lends itself to a largely analytical treatment [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. We show that by implementing an instantaneous feedback protocol that relies on the measurement of a quadrature of guided light [34,[49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57], a rich variety of dynamical phases can be achieved, among them a continuous time crystal.…”

“…. , in fact suppresses such unwanted decay channels [45,47]. Under these conditions and employing the Born-Markov approximation, the dynamics of the emitterwaveguide system is described by a particularly simple master equation:…”