Dephasing dynamics of Rydberg atom spin waves

Bariani, Francesco; Goldbart, Paul M.; Kennedy, Tom

doi:10.1103/physreva.86.041802

Cited by 20 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…At longer time scales, the dynamics is dominated by the dephasing of multiparticle components of the input states. We confirm the latter by measuring for the first time the nonlinear dependence of the coherence time of stored Rydberg DSPs with respect to the input photon number [38]. Our results have a direct consequence in Rydberg quantum optics, demonstrating that the regime of strongly interacting DSPs required in most of the protocols can be achieved by storing the the light even for a very short time.…”

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confidence: 76%

“…By switching off and back on the coupling field, photons can be stored as Rydberg excitations and retrieved at later time [26,29]. In this case the DD interaction dephases the collective emission of the multiparticle components of the stored photonic states [37,38]. This feature was used to implement a deterministic single-photon source [26].The key point of all these experiments is the strong nonlinear response arising from the DD interaction between high-lying Rydberg states.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Storage Enhanced Nonlinearities in a Cold Atomic Rydberg Ensemble

et al. 2016

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The combination of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with the nonlinear interaction between Rydberg atoms provides an effective interaction between photons. In this paper, we investigate the storage of optical pulses as collective Rydberg atomic excitations in a cold atomic ensemble. By measuring the dynamics of the stored Rydberg polaritons, we experimentally demonstrate that storing a probe pulse as Rydberg polaritons strongly enhances the Rydberg mediated interaction compared to the slow propagation case. We show that the process is characterized by two time scales. At short storage times, we observe a strong enhancement of the interaction due to the reduction of the Rydberg polariton group velocity down to zero. For longer storage times, we observe a further, weaker enhancement dominated by Rydberg induced dephasing of the multiparticle components of the state. In this regime, we observe a non-linear dependence of the Rydberg polariton coherence time with the input photon number. Our results have direct consequences in Rydberg quantum optics and may enable the test of new theories of strongly interacting Rydberg systems.PACS numbers: 32.80. Ee,42.50.Nn,42.50.Gy The possibility to control the interaction between photons provided by highly nonlinear media is a key ingredient to the goal of quantum information processing (QIP) using photons and a unique tool to study the dynamics of many-body correlated systems [1]. Many different systems showing high nonlinear optical response at the single-photon level have been studied during the past years ranging from resonators coupled to single atoms [2-6], atomic ensembles [7], to artificial two-level atoms [8,9].A promising strategy to perform different QIP tasks using photons as carriers is the combination of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) [10][11][12][13] and Rydberg atoms [14] (see for example ). Using EIT one maps the state of the photons into atomic coherence in the form of Rydberg dark-state polaritons (DSPs) by means of an auxiliary coupling field. The strong Rydberg dipole-dipole (DD) interaction between neighboring excitations shifts the multiply-excited states from being resonantly coupled when these excitations are closer than a certain length called the blockade radius, r b [25]. This way, only a single excitation can be created inside of a blockaded volume of the atomic cloud (so-called superatom). This phenomenon, known as Rydberg blockade, has been used in combination with EIT to generate quantum states of light [27][28][29], single-photon switches and transistors [30,31,33,34] as well as a π phase shift controlled with single-photon level pulse [36]. These experiments typically require very high atomic densities and high-lying Rydberg states. By switching off and back on the coupling field, photons can be stored as Rydberg excitations and retrieved at later time [26,29]. In this case the DD interaction dephases the collective emission of the multiparticle components of the stored photonic states [37,38]. This feature was ...

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confidence: 99%

Storage Enhanced Nonlinearities in a Cold Atomic Rydberg Ensemble

et al. 2016

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“…While Rydberg states provide strong long-range atom-atom interactions, EIT provides strong atom-light interactions with controlled dissipation. The resulting combination gives rise to strong and often dissipative photon-photon interactions [20][21][22][23], which can be used to generate a variety of nonclassical states of light [12][13][14][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] and to implement photon-photon and atom-photon quantum gates [21,23,39,40]. The first wave-function-based descriptions of two-photon propagation in Rydbeg EIT media have revealed the emergence of correlated two-photon losses that could enable the deterministic generation of single photons [13,21].…”

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confidence: 99%

Dissipative Many-Body Quantum Optics in Rydberg Media

2013

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We develop a theoretical framework for the dissipative propagation of quantized light under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency in atomic media involving strongly interacting Rydberg states. The theory allows us to determine the peculiar spatiotemporal structure of the output of the recently demonstrated single-photon filter and the recently proposed single-photon subtractor, which, respectively, let through and absorb a single photon. In addition to being crucial for applications of these and other optical quantum devices, the theory opens the door to the study of exotic dissipative many-body dynamics of strongly interacting photons in nonlinear nonlocal media. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.153601 PACS numbers: 42.50.Nn, 32.80.Ee, 34.20.Cf, 42.50.Gy Dissipation has recently been recognized as a powerful tool for quantum information and many-body physics [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. A particular example, realized in recent experiments [12][13][14], is the propagation of quantized light fields in Rydberg media [15][16][17][18] under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) [19]. While Rydberg states provide strong long-range atom-atom interactions, EIT provides strong atom-light interactions with controlled dissipation. The resulting combination gives rise to strong and often dissipative photon-photon interactions [20][21][22][23], which can be used to generate a variety of nonclassical states of light [12][13][14][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] and to implement photon-photon and atom-photon quantum gates [21,23,39,40]. The first wave-function-based descriptions of two-photon propagation in Rydbeg EIT media have revealed the emergence of correlated two-photon losses that could enable the deterministic generation of single photons [13,21]. Yet, the fate of the remaining photon as well as the underlying dissipative many-body dynamics have remained unclear despite their essential role in the performance of future Rydberg-EIT-based nonlinear optical quantum devices.In this Letter, we address these outstanding questions and develop a theory for the dissipative many-body dynamics of quantized light fields in a strongly interacting medium. In contrast to earlier studies [13,21], our theory provides information about the many-body density matrix of the light field; i.e., it faithfully describes the process of populating the m-photon states from the (m þ 1)-photon manifold as a photon scatters. In addition to opening the door to the study of photonic dissipative many-body physics, the theory allows one to compute the complex spatiotemporal structure of the generated nonclassical light fields, whose understanding is crucial for applications. As two important examples that illustrate this point and evince the power of our method, we consider the recently demonstrated single-photon filter [13,21] and the recently proposed single-photon subtractor [26]. In the limit of strong interactions, our approach yields exact solutions to the dissipative ...

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“…The change in g (2) AB while the single-channel values g To compare our results to theory, we extend previous theoretical work 14 on interaction-induced dephasing within a single channel to model the effect of phase shifts in our dual-channel geometry (dashed lines in Figs 3-5, see Methods for more details). Spatial averaging of the phase shifts over all atoms contributing to the collective states means that interaction falls off more slowly than for the individual pair-wise terms, V jk .…”

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confidence: 74%

“…We demonstrate such a contactless coupling between photons stored as collective Rydberg excitations in spatially separate optical media. The potential induced by each photon modifies the retrieval mode of its neighbour 7,9,14,15 , leading to correlations between them. We measure these correlations as a function of interaction strength, distance and storage time, demonstrating an e ective interaction between photons separated by 15 times their wavelength.…”

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confidence: 99%

Contactless nonlinear optics mediated by long-range Rydberg interactions

et al. 2017

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In conventional nonlinear optics, linear quantum optics 1,2 , and cavity quantum electrodynamics 3,4 to create e ective photonphoton interactions photons must have, at one time, interacted with matter inside a common medium. In contrast, in Rydberg quantum optics [5][6][7][8][9][10] , optical photons are coherently and reversibly mapped onto collective atomic Rydberg excitations 11 , giving rise to dipole-mediated e ective photon-photon interactions that are long range 12,13 . Consequently, a spatial overlap between the light modes is no longer required. We demonstrate such a contactless coupling between photons stored as collective Rydberg excitations in spatially separate optical media. The potential induced by each photon modifies the retrieval mode of its neighbour 7,9,14,15 , leading to correlations between them. We measure these correlations as a function of interaction strength, distance and storage time, demonstrating an e ective interaction between photons separated by 15 times their wavelength. Contactless e ective photon-photon interactions 16 are relevant for scalable multichannel photonic devices 15,17 and the study of strongly correlated many-body dynamics using light 18 . In vacuum, photon-photon interactions are so weak that they are discernible only at cosmological scales 19 . This is a remarkable asset for astronomy, imaging and communications, but a serious obstacle for all-optical processing. In linear quantum optics, one can engineer an effective interaction via measurement 1 which enables entanglement swapping between remote photons 2 ; however, this relies on probabilistic post-selective measurements. Inside a medium, interactions between light fields are possible if the lightmatter coupling is nonlinear. For sufficiently strong nonlinearities, such as in cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED) 3 or Rydberg quantum optics 5 , one enters a quantum nonlinear regime 20 , allowing deterministic effective interactions at the single-photon level 4,[7][8][9][10] . This has paved the way towards prototypical single-photon transistors 21,22 , phase-shifters 23 , and photon gates 24 . A unique feature of Rydberg-mediated quantum nonlinear optics 5 is that the interaction is long range 12,13 , and can be mediated through free space by virtual microwave photons. This adds new geometric degrees of freedom to the nonlinear optics tool box which could facilitate scalable photonic networks, quantum simulation with photons, and circumvent 'no-go' theorems that limit the scope for all-optical quantum information processing (QIP) [15][16][17]25 . To directly demonstrate the long-range character of Rydberg-mediated nonlinear optics, we realize two strongly interacting photonic channels in independent optical media separated by an adjustable distance d of more than 10 µm. While stored as collective Rydberg excitations, van der Waals (vdW) interactions imprint non-uniform phase shifts 14,15 that lead to reduced retrieval in the photons' initial modes (Fig. 1). By counting photons in the unperturbed modes, the red...

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Dephasing dynamics of Rydberg atom spin waves

Cited by 20 publications

References 23 publications

Storage Enhanced Nonlinearities in a Cold Atomic Rydberg Ensemble

Storage Enhanced Nonlinearities in a Cold Atomic Rydberg Ensemble

Dissipative Many-Body Quantum Optics in Rydberg Media

Contactless nonlinear optics mediated by long-range Rydberg interactions

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