One Photon Can Simultaneously Excite Two or More Atoms

Abstract

We consider two separate atoms interacting with a single-mode optical resonator. When the frequency of the resonator field is twice the atomic transition frequency, we show that there exists a resonant coupling between one photon and two atoms, via intermediate virtual states connected by counter-rotating processes. If the resonator is prepared in its one-photon state, the photon can be jointly absorbed by the two atoms in their ground state which will both reach their excited state with probability close to one. Like ordinary quantum Rabi oscillations, this process is coherent and reversible, so that two atoms in their excited state will undergo a downward transition jointly emitting a single cavity photon. This joint absorption and emission processes can also occur with three atoms. The parameters used to investigate this process correspond to experimentally demonstrated values in circuit quantum electrodynamics systems.

Circuit QED with qutrits: Coupling three or more atoms via virtual-photon exchange

“…This is a signature of almost perfect two-atom correlation: if one atom is excited, the other is also excited [31]. We also find that the two-atom correlation function goes almost to zero every time the mean excitation number of the 1st atom σ…”

“…, which describes the quantum correlation between the emitted photons from the two atoms into noncavity modes [31]. We observe that the twoatom correlation function and the atom mean excitation number σ…”

“…1(a), we can derive the effective Hamiltonian which governs various multi-atom interactions by using the standard perturbation theory [31,32].…”

“…The coherent exchange interaction between multiple distant atoms via intermediate virtual states connected by the counterrotating interaction terms, can happen deterministically. Furthermore, the excitation number nonconserving process in the USC regime, including multi-photon Rabi oscillation [29,30], a single photon exciting multi-atom simultaneously [31], quantum nonlinear optics with atoms and virtual photons [32,33] have also been theoretically predicted. However, although a few experiments have recently achieved the USC regime in solidstate quantum system [34][35][36], quantum state manipulating and high-fidelity readout are still a tough challenge with existing technique, hindering the practical implementation of these coherent exchange interactions at present.…”

Complete elimination of nonlinear light-matter interactions with broadband ultrafast laser pulses

“…This includes topics as, generating single photon sources [1][2][3], storing single photons in quantum memory devices [4,5], and controlling the interactions between single photons and matter [6][7][8]. When a beam of light interacts with matter with quantized energy levels, optical absorption and emission are fundamental processes corresponding to a transition from one energy level to another.…”