@article {1507, title = {Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons}, journal = {Physical Review Letters}, volume = {115}, year = {2015}, month = {2015/09/16}, pages = {123601}, abstract = { We show that two photons coupled to Rydberg states via electromagnetically induced transparency can interact via an effective Coulomb potential. This interaction gives rise to a continuum of two-body bound states. Within the continuum, metastable bound states are distinguished in analogy with quasi-bound states tunneling through a potential barrier. We find multiple branches of metastable bound states whose energy spectrum is governed by the Coulomb potential, thus obtaining a photonic analogue of the hydrogen atom. Under certain conditions, the wavefunction resembles that of a diatomic molecule in which the two polaritons are separated by a finite "bond length." These states propagate with a negative group velocity in the medium, allowing for a simple preparation and detection scheme, before they slowly decay to pairs of bound Rydberg atoms. }, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.123601}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.03859v1}, author = {Mohammad F. Maghrebi and Michael Gullans and P. Bienias and S. Choi and I. Martin and O. Firstenberg and M. D. Lukin and H. P. B{\"u}chler and Alexey V. Gorshkov} }