@article {2567, title = {Exotic photonic molecules via Lennard-Jones-like potentials}, journal = {Phys. Rev. Lett.}, volume = {125}, year = {2020}, month = {9/19/2020}, abstract = {
Ultracold systems offer an unprecedented level of control of interactions between atoms. An important challenge is to achieve a similar level of control of the interactions between photons. Towards this goal, we propose a realization of a novel Lennard-Jones-like potential between photons coupled to the Rydberg states via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). This potential is achieved by tuning Rydberg states to a F{{\"o}}rster resonance with other Rydberg states. We consider few-body problems in 1D and 2D geometries and show the existence of self-bound clusters (\"molecules\") of photons. We demonstrate that for a few-body problem, the multi-body interactions have a significant impact on the geometry of the molecular ground state. This leads to phenomena without counterparts in conventional systems: For example, three photons in 2D preferentially arrange themselves in a line-configuration rather than in an equilateral-triangle configuration. Our result opens a new avenue for studies of many-body phenomena with strongly interacting photons.
}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.093601}, url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.07864}, author = {Przemyslaw Bienias and Michael Gullans and Marcin Kalinowski and Alexander N. Craddock and Dalia P. Ornelas-Huerta and Steven L. Rolston and J. V. Porto and Alexey V. Gorshkov} }