Strongly Correlated Photon Transport in Waveguide Quantum Electrodynamics with Weakly Coupled Emitters

TY - JOUR

T1 - Strongly Correlated Photon Transport in Waveguide Quantum Electrodynamics with Weakly Coupled Emitters

AU - Mahmoodian, Sahand

AU - Čepulkovskis, Mantas

AU - Das, Sumanta Kumar

AU - Lodahl, Peter

AU - Hammerer, Klemens

AU - Sørensen, Anders Søndberg

PY - 2018/10/3

Y1 - 2018/10/3

N2 - We show that strongly correlated photon transport can be observed in waveguides containing optically dense ensembles of emitters. Remarkably, this occurs even for weak coupling efficiencies. Specifically, we compute the photon transport properties through a chirally coupled system of N two-level systems driven by a weak coherent field, where each emitter can also scatter photons out of the waveguide. The photon correlations arise due to an interplay of nonlinearity and coupling to a loss reservoir, which creates a strong effective interaction between transmitted photons. The highly correlated photon states are less susceptible to losses than uncorrelated photons and have a power-law decay with N. This is described using a simple universal asymptotic solution governed by a single scaling parameter which describes photon bunching and power transmission. We show numerically that, for randomly placed emitters, these results hold even in systems without chirality. The effect can be observed in existing tapered fiber setups with trapped atoms.

AB - We show that strongly correlated photon transport can be observed in waveguides containing optically dense ensembles of emitters. Remarkably, this occurs even for weak coupling efficiencies. Specifically, we compute the photon transport properties through a chirally coupled system of N two-level systems driven by a weak coherent field, where each emitter can also scatter photons out of the waveguide. The photon correlations arise due to an interplay of nonlinearity and coupling to a loss reservoir, which creates a strong effective interaction between transmitted photons. The highly correlated photon states are less susceptible to losses than uncorrelated photons and have a power-law decay with N. This is described using a simple universal asymptotic solution governed by a single scaling parameter which describes photon bunching and power transmission. We show numerically that, for randomly placed emitters, these results hold even in systems without chirality. The effect can be observed in existing tapered fiber setups with trapped atoms.

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.143601

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.143601

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 30339447

SN - 0031-9007

VL - 121

JO - Physical Review Letters

JF - Physical Review Letters

M1 - 143601

ER -