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Title: Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons

Abstract

We show that two photons coupled to Rydberg states via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) can interact via an effective Coulomb potential. The interaction then gives rise to a continuum of two-body bound states. Within the continuum, metastable bound states are distinguished in analogy with quasi-bound states tunneling through a potential barrier. We find multiple branches of metastable bound states whose energy spectrum is governed by the Coulomb problem, thus obtaining a photonic analogue of the hydrogen atom. These states propagate with a negative group velocity in the medium, which allows for a simple preparation and detection scheme, before they slowly decay to pairs of bound Rydberg atoms. As a result, we verify the metastability and backward propagation of these Coulomb bound states with exact numerical simulations.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [3];  [2];  [1]
  1. NIST/Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  2. Univ. of Stuttgart, Stuttgart (Germany)
  3. Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
  4. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
  5. Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot (Israel)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Materials Sciences and Engineering Division
OSTI Identifier:
1356358
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1215787
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-06CH11357
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physical Review Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 115; Journal Issue: 12; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS

Citation Formats

Maghrebi, M. F., Gullans, Michael J., Bienias, P., Choi, S., Martin, I., Firstenberg, O., Lukin, M. D., Büchler, H. P., and Gorshkov, A. V. Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.123601.
Maghrebi, M. F., Gullans, Michael J., Bienias, P., Choi, S., Martin, I., Firstenberg, O., Lukin, M. D., Büchler, H. P., & Gorshkov, A. V. Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.123601
Maghrebi, M. F., Gullans, Michael J., Bienias, P., Choi, S., Martin, I., Firstenberg, O., Lukin, M. D., Büchler, H. P., and Gorshkov, A. V. Wed . "Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.123601. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1356358.
@article{osti_1356358,
title = {Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons},
author = {Maghrebi, M. F. and Gullans, Michael J. and Bienias, P. and Choi, S. and Martin, I. and Firstenberg, O. and Lukin, M. D. and Büchler, H. P. and Gorshkov, A. V.},
abstractNote = {We show that two photons coupled to Rydberg states via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) can interact via an effective Coulomb potential. The interaction then gives rise to a continuum of two-body bound states. Within the continuum, metastable bound states are distinguished in analogy with quasi-bound states tunneling through a potential barrier. We find multiple branches of metastable bound states whose energy spectrum is governed by the Coulomb problem, thus obtaining a photonic analogue of the hydrogen atom. These states propagate with a negative group velocity in the medium, which allows for a simple preparation and detection scheme, before they slowly decay to pairs of bound Rydberg atoms. As a result, we verify the metastability and backward propagation of these Coulomb bound states with exact numerical simulations.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.123601},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 12,
volume = 115,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Sep 16 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Wed Sep 16 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}

Journal Article:

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 44 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: (a) The probe field couples the ground state |g〉 to the excited state |e〉 and is red-detuned by ∆. A control field with Rabi frequency Ω couples |e〉 to the Rydberg state |r〉 and is blue-detuned by ∆, thus putting the probe on an EIT transmission resonance. Themore » Rydberg state is thus shifted downward by Ω2/∆. The van der Waals interaction with another reference Rydberg excitation at r = 0 can brings |r〉 into an absorption resonance with the two-photon transition. (b) The effective potential of two Rydberg polaritons as a function of their separation r. At large separations, the effective potential is that of the van der Waals interaction; the resonant condition near the blockade radius gives rise to a singularity, while at small separations the interaction levels off as the Rydberg state is highly shifted out of resonance. In the vicinity of the singularity, the potential behaves as that of the Coulomb interaction.« less

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Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.