02076nas a2200229 4500008004100000245007800041210006900119520136400188100002401552700001901576700002401595700001701619700002301636700002101659700001801680700002101698700001901719700002701738700001901765700002501784856003701809 2018 eng d00aPhoton propagation through dissipative Rydberg media at large input rates0 aPhoton propagation through dissipative Rydberg media at large in3 a

We study the dissipative propagation of quantized light in interacting Rydberg media under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Rydberg blockade physics in optically dense atomic media leads to strong dissipative interactions between single photons. The regime of high incoming photon flux constitutes a challenging many-body dissipative problem. We experimentally study in detail for the first time the pulse shapes and the second-order correlation function of the outgoing field and compare our data with simulations based on two novel theoretical approaches well-suited to treat this many-photon limit. At low incoming flux, we report good agreement between both theories and the experiment. For higher input flux, the intensity of the outgoing light is lower than that obtained from theoretical predictions. We explain this discrepancy using a simple phenomenological model taking into account pollutants, which are nearly-stationary Rydberg excitations coming from the reabsorption of scattered probe photons. At high incoming photon rates, the blockade physics results in unconventional shapes of measured correlation functions. 

1 aBienias, Przemyslaw1 aDouglas, James1 aParis-Mandoki, Asaf1 aTitum, Paraj1 aMirgorodskiy, Ivan1 aTresp, Christoph1 aZeuthen, Emil1 aGullans, Michael1 aManzoni, Marco1 aHofferberth, Sebastian1 aChang, Darrick1 aGorshkov, Alexey, V. uhttps://arxiv.org/abs/1807.0758601386nas a2200193 4500008004100000245004800041210004700089260001500136520082300151100002300974700002300997700002101020700002101041700002401062700002501086700002701111700001701138856003701155 2018 eng d00aPhoton Subtraction by Many-Body Decoherence0 aPhoton Subtraction by ManyBody Decoherence c2018/03/133 a

We present an experimental and theoretical investigation of the scattering-induced decoherence of multiple photons stored in a strongly interacting atomic ensemble. We derive an exact solution to this many-body problem, allowing for a rigorous understanding of the underlying dissipative quantum dynamics. Combined with our experiments, this analysis demonstrates a correlated coherence-protection process, in which the induced decoherence of one photon can preserve the spatial coherence of all others. We discuss how this effect can be used to manipulate light at the quantum level, providing a robust mechanism for single-photon subtraction, and experimentally demonstrate this capability.

1 aMurray, Callum, R.1 aMirgorodskiy, Ivan1 aTresp, Christoph1 aBraun, Christoph1 aParis-Mandoki, Asaf1 aGorshkov, Alexey, V.1 aHofferberth, Sebastian1 aPohl, Thomas uhttps://arxiv.org/abs/1710.10047