01587nas a2200217 4500008004100000245005800041210005700099260001400156520092600170100003001096700002401126700002801150700002101178700002401199700002301223700001901246700002501265700002401290700001801314856003701332 2021 eng d00aTunable three-body loss in a nonlinear Rydberg medium0 aTunable threebody loss in a nonlinear Rydberg medium c9/28/20203 a

Long-range Rydberg interactions, in combination with electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), give rise to strongly interacting photons where the strength, sign, and form of the interactions are widely tunable and controllable. Such control can be applied to both coherent and dissipative interactions, which provides the potential to generate novel few-photon states. Recently it has been shown that Rydberg-EIT is a rare system in which three-body interactions can be as strong or stronger than two-body interactions. In this work, we study a three-body scattering loss for Rydberg-EIT in a wide regime of single and two-photon detunings. Our numerical simulations of the full three-body wavefunction and analytical estimates based on Fermi's Golden Rule strongly suggest that the observed features in the outgoing photonic correlations are caused by the resonant enhancement of the three-body losses.

1 aHuerta, Dalia, P. Ornelas1 aBienias, Przemyslaw1 aCraddock, Alexander, N.1 aGullans, Michael1 aHachtel, Andrew, J.1 aKalinowski, Marcin1 aLyon, Mary, E.1 aGorshkov, Alexey, V.1 aRolston, Steven, L.1 aPorto, J., V. uhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2009.1359901709nas a2200205 4500008004100000245006400041210006200105260001400167490000800181520108400189100002401273700002101297700002301318700002801341700003001369700002401399700001801423700002501441856003701466 2020 eng d00aExotic photonic molecules via Lennard-Jones-like potentials0 aExotic photonic molecules via LennardJoneslike potentials c9/19/20200 v1253 a

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{ö}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.

1 aBienias, Przemyslaw1 aGullans, Michael1 aKalinowski, Marcin1 aCraddock, Alexander, N.1 aOrnelas-Huerta, Dalia, P.1 aRolston, Steven, L.1 aPorto, J., V.1 aGorshkov, Alexey, V. uhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2003.0786401558nas a2200217 4500008004100000245008100041210006900122260001500191520086200206100002301068700001601091700002401107700002101131700003001152700002801182700002401210700001801234700002601252700002501278856003701303 2020 eng d00aResonant enhancement of three-body loss between strongly interacting photons0 aResonant enhancement of threebody loss between strongly interact c10/19/20203 a

Rydberg polaritons provide an example of a rare type of system where three-body interactions can be as strong or even stronger than two-body interactions. The three-body interactions can be either dispersive or dissipative, with both types possibly giving rise to exotic, strongly-interacting, and topological phases of matter. Despite past theoretical and experimental studies of the regime with dispersive interaction, the dissipative regime is still mostly unexplored. Using a renormalization group technique to solve the three-body Schrödinger equation, we show how the shape and strength of dissipative three-body forces can be universally enhanced for Rydberg polaritons. We demonstrate how these interactions relate to the transmission through a single-mode cavity, which can be used as a probe of the three-body physics in current experiment

1 aKalinowski, Marcin1 aWang, Yidan1 aBienias, Przemyslaw1 aGullans, Michael1 aOrnelas-Huerta, Dalia, P.1 aCraddock, Alexander, N.1 aRolston, Steven, L.1 aPorto, J., V.1 aBüchler, Hans, Peter1 aGorshkov, Alexey, V. uhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2010.09772