Cavity quantum electrodynamics with a Rydberg-blocked atomic ensemble

Journal Article · Mon Nov 15 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.82.053832· OSTI ID:21528748

Guerlin, Christine ^[1]; Brion, Etienne ^[2]; Esslinger, Tilman ^[1]; Moelmer, Klaus ^[3]

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1. Institute for Quantum Electronics, ETH Zuerich, CH-8093 Zuerich (Switzerland)
2. Laboratoire Aime Cotton, CNRS, Campus d'Orsay, F-91405, Orsay (France)
3. Lundbeck Foundation Theoretical Center for Quantum System Research, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 (Denmark)

The realization of a Jaynes-Cummings model in the optical domain is proposed for an atomic ensemble. The scheme exploits the collective coupling of the atoms to a quantized cavity mode and the nonlinearity introduced by coupling to high-lying Rydberg states. A two-photon transition resonantly couples the single-atom ground state |g> to a Rydberg state |e> via a nonresonant intermediate state |i>, but due to the interaction between Rydberg atoms only a single atom can be resonantly excited in the ensemble. This restricts the state space of the ensemble to the collective ground state |G> and the collectively excited state |E> with a single Rydberg excitation distributed evenly on all atoms. The collectively enhanced coupling of all atoms to the cavity field with coherent coupling strengths which are much larger than the decay rates in the system leads to the strong coupling regime of the resulting effective Jaynes-Cummings model. We use numerical simulations to show that the cavity transmission can be used to reveal detailed properties of the Jaynes-Cummings ladder of excited states and that the atomic nonlinearity gives rise to highly nontrivial photon emission from the cavity. Finally, we suggest that the absence of interactions between remote Rydberg atoms may, due to a combinatorial effect, induce a cavity-assisted excitation blockade whose range is larger than the typical Rydberg dipole-dipole interaction length.

• OSTI ID: 21528748
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 82, Issue 5; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.82.053832; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ATOMS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COUPLING
DECAY
DIPOLES
EXCITATION
INTERMEDIATE STATE
MATHEMATICAL SPACE
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PHOTON EMISSION
PHOTONS
QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS
RYDBERG STATES
STRONG-COUPLING MODEL
BOSONS
ELECTRODYNAMICS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
EMISSION
ENERGY LEVELS
ENERGY-LEVEL TRANSITIONS
EXCITED STATES
FIELD THEORIES
MASSLESS PARTICLES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MULTIPOLES
PARTICLE MODELS
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
SIMULATION
SPACE