%0 Journal Article %J Phys. Rev. Lett. %D 2020 %T Exotic photonic molecules via Lennard-Jones-like potentials %A Przemyslaw Bienias %A Michael Gullans %A Marcin Kalinowski %A Alexander N. Craddock %A Dalia P. Ornelas-Huerta %A Steven L. Rolston %A J. V. Porto %A Alexey V. Gorshkov %X
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{รถ}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.
%B Phys. Rev. Lett. %V 125 %8 9/19/2020 %G eng %U https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.07864 %N 093601 %R https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.093601