Hannover 2020 – scientific programme
The DPG Spring Meeting in Hannover had to be cancelled! Read more ...
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 45: Quantum Effects (QED) II
Q 45.4: Talk
Thursday, March 12, 2020, 11:45–12:00, f442
Many-body photon bound state propagation in waveguide QED — •Sahand Mahmoodian1, Giuseppe Calajó2, Darrick Chang2, Klemens Hammerer1, and Anders Sørensen3 — 1Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany — 2ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Spain — 3Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Generating many-body states of light is an outstanding challenge in quantum optics. One of the main obstacles in the pursuit of this goal has been developing a system with a sufficiently strong nonlinear response. In this talk, we show that two-level atoms chirally coupled to a waveguide provide an ideal platform to observe quantum many-body states of photons. By computing the propagation of light through this system, we show that of central importance are the class of photon bound states with a well-defined photon number n, which propagate with a photon-number-dependent group-delay scaling as 1/n2. This leads to input coherent pulses of light becoming spatially separated after interacting with sufficiently many atoms. We also show that, in the classical limit, the photon bound states map onto the soliton solutions of self-induced transparency. Our many-body theory is able to capture the entire spectrum of behaviour from few-photon quantum propagation, genuine many-body photon dynamics, and finally, the quantum-to-classical transition. This physics can be potentially demonstrated in state-of-the art circuit QED and nanophotonic experiments.