Repulsive photons in a quantum nonlinear medium
Name
1911.02586.pdf
Description
Submitted version
Size
1.26 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
912776158325fe9c7272abb4384a5711
Author(s)
Cantu, Sergio H
Venkatramani, Aditya V
Xu, Wenchao
Zhou, Leo
Jelenković, Brana
Lukin, Mikhail D
Vuletić, Vladan
Date Issued
2020
Journal
Nature Physics
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
© 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. The ability to control strongly interacting light quanta (photons) is of central importance in quantum science and engineering1–5. Recently it was shown that such strong interactions can be engineered in specially prepared quantum optical systems6–10. Here, we demonstrate a method for coherent control of strongly interacting photons, extending quantum nonlinear optics into the domain of repulsive photons. This is achieved by coherently coupling photons to several atomic states, including strongly interacting Rydberg levels in a cold Rubidium gas. Using this approach we demonstrate both repulsive and attractive interactions between individual photons and characterize them by the measured two- and three-photon correlation functions. For the repulsive case, we demonstrate signatures of interference and self ordering from three-photon measurements. These observations open a route to study strongly interacting dissipative systems and quantum matter composed of light such as a crystal of individual photons11,12.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/S41567-020-0917-6
