%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{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.

%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 %0 Journal Article %D 2020 %T On-demand indistinguishable single photons from an efficient and pure source based on a Rydberg ensemble %A Dalia P. Ornelas-Huerta %A Alexander N. Craddock %A Elizabeth A. Goldschmidt %A Andrew J. Hachtel %A Yidan Wang %A P. Bienias %A Alexey V. Gorshkov %A Steve L. Rolston %A James V. Porto %X

Single photons coupled to atomic systems have shown to be a promising platform for developing quantum technologies. Yet a bright on-demand, highly pure and highly indistinguishable single-photon source compatible with atomic platforms is lacking. In this work, we demonstrate such a source based on a strongly interacting Rydberg system. The large optical nonlinearities in a blockaded Rydberg ensemble convert coherent light into a single-collective excitation that can be coherently retrieved as a quantum field. We observe a single-transverse-mode efficiency up to 0.18(2), g(2)=2.0(1.5)×10−4, and indistinguishability of 0.982(7), making this system promising for scalable quantum information applications. Accounting for losses, we infer a generation probability up to 0.40(4). Furthermore, we investigate the effects of contaminant Rydberg excitations on the source efficiency. Finally, we introduce metrics to benchmark the performance of on-demand single-photon sources. 

%8 3/4/2020 %G eng %U https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.02202 %0 Journal Article %D 2020 %T Resonant enhancement of three-body loss between strongly interacting photons %A Marcin Kalinowski %A Yidan Wang %A Przemyslaw Bienias %A Michael Gullans %A Dalia P. Ornelas-Huerta %A Alexander N. Craddock %A Steven L. Rolston %A J. V. Porto %A Hans Peter Büchler %A Alexey V. Gorshkov %X

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

%8 10/19/2020 %G eng %U https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.09772