Wigner Crystallization of Single Photons in Cold Rydberg Ensembles

Otterbach, Johannes; Moos, Matthias; Muth, Dominik; Fleischhauer, Michael

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.111.113001

Cited by 97 publications

(122 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(84 reference statements)

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“…Like their condensed matter counterparts, strongly interacting many-body photonic systems offer a number of challenges and opportunities. For example, effective theories such as Luttinger liquids have proven very useful for describing condensed-matter systems, but it is an open question whether such theories are also applicable to photons 90 . Once we have established a mapping to a model of interest, these strongly interacting photonic systems could be used, for example, to perform quantum simulations of the corresponding Hamiltonian.…”

Section: Many-body Physics With Strongly Interacting Photonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, C 6 is the atomic van der Waals coefficient. propagating in cold atomic gases, in which the photon-photon interactions are induced using either single-atom nonlinearities or strong interactions between atoms in Rydberg states 89,90 . For example, researchers predict that a photonic state exhibiting crystal correlations could be produced by engineering strong effective repulsion between photons and an effective photonic mass in EIT-based systems 89,90 .…”

Section: Many-body Physics With Strongly Interacting Photonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…propagating in cold atomic gases, in which the photon-photon interactions are induced using either single-atom nonlinearities or strong interactions between atoms in Rydberg states 89,90 . For example, researchers predict that a photonic state exhibiting crystal correlations could be produced by engineering strong effective repulsion between photons and an effective photonic mass in EIT-based systems 89,90 . This represents a remarkable new avenue for quantum nonlinear optics, wherein exotic states of light can be created whose collective properties cannot be understood in a mean-field picture -a type of behaviour that in the past has been associated primarily with strongly interacting condensed-matter systems.…”

Section: Many-body Physics With Strongly Interacting Photonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantum nonlinear optics — photon by photon

2014

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other. This linearity in light propagation, in combination with the high frequency and hence large bandwidth provided by waves at optical frequencies, has made optical signals the preferred method for communicating information over long distances. In contrast, the processing of information requires some form of interaction between signals. In the case of light, such interactions can be enabled by nonlinear optical processes. These processes, which are now found ubiquitously throughout science and technology, include optical modulation and switching, nonlinear spectroscopy and frequency conversion 1 , and have applications across both the physical 2 and biological 3,4 sciences.A long-standing goal in optical science has been the implementation of nonlinear effects at progressively lower light powers or pulse energies. The ultimate limit may be termed 'quantum nonlinear optics' (Box 1) -the regime where individual photons interact so strongly with one another that the propagation of light pulses containing one, two or more photons varies substantially with photon number. Although this domain is difficult to reach owing to the small nonlinear coefficients of bulk optical materials, the potential payoff is significant. The realization of quantum nonlinear optics could improve the performance of classical nonlinear devices, enabling, for example, fast energy-efficient optical transistors that avoid Ohmic heating 5 . Furthermore, nonlinear switches activated by single photons could enable optical quantum information processing and communication 6 , as well as other applications that rely on the generation and manipulation of non-classical light fields 7,8 . The challenge of making photons interactAt low optical powers, most optical materials exhibit only linear optical phenomena, such as refraction and absorption, which can be described by a complex index of refraction. However, a sufficiently intense light beam can modify a material's index of refraction, such that the light propagation becomes power-dependent. This is the essence of classical nonlinear optics (Box 1). Large optical fields are required to alter the index of refraction of conventional bulk materials because a strong nonlinear response can only be induced if the electric field of the light beam acting on the electrons is comparable to the field of the nucleus. As a result, early experimental observations of nonlinear optical phenomena, such as frequencydoubling or sum-frequency generation 9 , were achievable only after the development of powerful lasers. Advances in nonlinear optics over the past four decades have resulted in progressively more efficient nonlinear processes 10 , thus enabling the observation of nonlinear processes at lower and lower light levels. It is natural to inquire if and how these nonlinear interactions can be made so strong that they become important even at the level of individual quanta of radiation. Although this question was addressed in early theoretical studies [11][12][13] , it has become more pressing with the advent of...

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Section: Many-body Physics With Strongly Interacting Photonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Many-body Physics With Strongly Interacting Photonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Many-body Physics With Strongly Interacting Photonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantum nonlinear optics — photon by photon

2014

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“…However, many other applications in classical and quantum communication, computation, and metrology would greatly benefit from tunable photon-photon interactions. Moreover, photon-photon interactions at the level of individual quanta could pave the way for the realization of exotic strongly correlated photonic states [1][2][3]. A typical approach to achieve strong two-photon interactions relies on confining photons to high-finesse cavities [4][5][6][7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scattering resonances and bound states for strongly interacting Rydberg polaritons

et al. 2014

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We provide a theoretical framework describing slow-light polaritons interacting via atomic Rydberg states. The method allows us to analytically derive the scattering properties of two polaritons. We identify parameter regimes where polariton-polariton interactions are repulsive. Furthermore, in the regime of attractive interactions, we identify multiple two-polariton bound states, calculate their dispersion, and study the resulting scattering resonances. Finally, the two-particle scattering properties allow us to derive the effective low-energy many-body Hamiltonian. This theoretical platform is applicable to ongoing experiments.

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“…DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.143603 Introduction.-A number of recent experimental breakthroughs [1][2][3][4] have spurred the investigation of nonequilibrium properties of hybrid quantum many-body systems of interacting matter and light. Characterized by excitations with a finite lifetime, when sustained by finiteamplitude optical drives they display steady-state phases that are generally far richer [5][6][7][8][9][10] than their equilibrium counterparts [11,12]. Critical phenomena in these open driven-dissipative systems often come with genuinely new properties and novel dynamic universality classes, even when an effective temperature can be identified [13][14][15][16][17], a statement that can be made robust in renormalization group calculations [18,19].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exotic Attractors of the Nonequilibrium Rabi-Hubbard Model

et al. 2016

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We explore the phase diagram of the dissipative Rabi-Hubbard model, as could be realized by a Ramanpumping scheme applied to a coupled cavity array. There exist various exotic attractors, including ferroelectric, antiferroelectric, and incommensurate fixed points, as well as regions of persistent oscillations. Many of these features can be understood analytically by truncating to the two lowest lying states of the Rabi model on each site. We also show that these features survive beyond mean field, using matrix product operator simulations. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.143603 Introduction.-A number of recent experimental breakthroughs [1][2][3][4] have spurred the investigation of nonequilibrium properties of hybrid quantum many-body systems of interacting matter and light. Characterized by excitations with a finite lifetime, when sustained by finiteamplitude optical drives they display steady-state phases that are generally far richer [5][6][7][8][9][10] than their equilibrium counterparts [11,12]. Critical phenomena in these open driven-dissipative systems often come with genuinely new properties and novel dynamic universality classes, even when an effective temperature can be identified [13][14][15][16][17], a statement that can be made robust in renormalization group calculations [18,19]. Coupled cavity QED systems [20][21][22] have emerged as natural platforms to study many-body physics of open quantum systems. The current fabrication and control capabilities in solid-state quantum optics allows us to probe lattice systems [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] in the mesoscopic regime, providing a first glimpse into how macroscopic quantum behavior may arise far from equilibrium. It is therefore of interest to identify a physical system where a nonequilibrium phase transition (i) can be studied-at least in principle-in the thermodynamic limit, (ii) can be compared to an equilibrium analogue through a proper limiting procedure, and (iii) can be easily realized in an architecture that is currently available.The Rabi-Hubbard (RH) model [32] represents the minimal description of coupled cavity QED systems, explicitly containing terms which do not conserve the particle number. These terms are relevant for the lowfrequency behavior of the coupled system and their inclusion lead, in equilibrium, to a Z 2 -symmetry breaking phase transition between a quantum disordered paraelectric phase and an Ising ferroelectric [32,33]. The equilibrium RH transition requires a sizable intercavity hopping or light-matter interaction, of the order of the transition

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Wigner Crystallization of Single Photons in Cold Rydberg Ensembles

Cited by 97 publications

References 55 publications

Quantum nonlinear optics — photon by photon

Quantum nonlinear optics — photon by photon

Scattering resonances and bound states for strongly interacting Rydberg polaritons

Exotic Attractors of the Nonequilibrium Rabi-Hubbard Model

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