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arXiv:1212.3012 · Physical Review A

Repulsively induced photon superbunching in driven resonator arrays

Thomas Grujic, Stephen R. L. Clark, Dieter Jaksch, Dimitris G. Angelakis

Published May 29, 2013• 40 citations
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Abstract

We analyze the nonequilibrium behavior of driven nonlinear photonic resonator arrays under the selective excitation of specific photonic many-body modes. Targeting the unit-filled ground state, we find a counterintuitive ``superbunching'' in the emitted photon statistics in spite of relatively strong on-site repulsive interaction. We consider resonator arrays with Kerr nonlinearities described by the Bose-Hubbard model, but also show that an analogous effect is observable in near-future experiments coupling resonators to two-level systems as described by the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard Hamiltonian. For the experimentally accessible case of a pair of coupled resonators forming a photonic molecule, we provide an analytical explanation for the nature of the effect.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.87.053846

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•Jan 1, 2013•0 citations
We analyze the nonequilibrium behavior of driven nonlinear photonic resonator arrays under the selective excitation of specific photonic many-body modes. Targeting the unit-filled ground state, we find a counterintuitive ``superbunching'' in the emitted photon statistics in spite of relatively strong on-site repulsive interaction. We consider resonator arrays with Kerr nonlinearities described by the Bose-Hubbard model, but also show that an analogous effect is observable in near-future experiments coupling resonators to two-level systems as described by the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard Hamiltonian. For the experimentally accessible case of a pair of coupled resonators forming a photonic molecule, we provide an analytical explanation for the nature of the effect.
We study the non-equilibrium behavior of optically driven dissipative coupled resonator arrays. Assuming each resonator is coupled with a two-level system via a Jaynes–Cummings interaction, we calculate the many-body steady state behavior of the system under coherent pumping and dissipation. We propose and analyze the many-body phases using experimentally accessible quantities such as the total excitation number, the emitted photon spectra and photon coherence functions for different parameter regimes. In parallel, we also compare and contrast the expected behavior of this system assuming the local nonlinearity in the cavities is generated by a generic Kerr effect as described by the Bose–Hubbard (BH) model rather than a Jaynes–Cummings interaction. We find that the behavior of the experimentally accessible observables produced by the two models differs for realistic regimes of interactions even when the corresponding nonlinearities are of similar strength. We analyze in detail the extra features available in the Jaynes–Cummings–Hubbard (JCH) model originating from the mixed nature of the excitations and investigate the regimes where the BH approximation would faithfully match the JCH physics. We find that the latter is true for values of the light–matter coupling and losses beyond the reach of current technology. Throughout the study we operate in the weak pumping, fully quantum mechanical regime where approaches such as mean field theory fail, and instead use a combination of quantum trajectories and the time evolving block decimation algorithm to compute the relevant steady state observables. In our study we have assumed small to medium size arrays (from 3 up to 16 sites) and values of the ratio of coupling to dissipation rate g / γ ∼ 20, which makes our results implementable with current designs in circuit QED and with near future photonic crystal set ups.
Through a quantitative analysis of an atomic transition driven strongly by quantized electromagnetic fields of various quantum states, we explore the role of quantum fluctuations on the behavior of the system. The emphasis is on fields with super-Poissonian statistics manifested in photon bunching, with the case of squeezed vacuum radiation serving as a prototype of superbunching. When combined with nonlinear coupling of the resonant states, bunching and superbunching lead to counterintuitive behavior. The connection to recent progress in squeezed vacuum sources and the opportunity for experimental investigation, as well as challenging open theoretical problems, are also outlined. In yet another context, the possibility of exploring related effects in strongly driven Auger resonances by FEL radiation is discussed.
We consider a generic model for interacting waveguide QED systems, where photons in a coupled-cavity array localize around atomic impurities while simultaneously interacting through local Kerr nonlinearities. This scenario appears naturally in nanophotonic crystals, circuit QED lattices, and ultracold atomic systems and is governed by the competition between attractive Jaynes-Cummings-mediated binding and intrinsic photon-photon repulsion. We analyze how this interplay affects the formation of localized few-photon bound states and determine the resulting many-body ground states for large periodic arrays of impurities and different filling factors. With the help of large-scale numerical simulations and approximate analytical models, we identify a rich phase diagram featuring Mott-like insulating states as well as superfluid phases with long-range correlations, which are mediated by an unbound, but strongly interacting photonic fluid.
In a recent work [Liew and Savona, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 183601 (2010)] it was numerically shown that a resonantly driven photonic ``molecule'' consisting of two coupled cavities can exhibit strong photon antibunching with a surprisingly weak Kerr nonlinearity. Here, we analytically identify the subtle quantum interference effect that is responsible for the predicted efficient photon blockade effect. We then extend the theory to the experimentally relevant Jaynes-Cummings system consisting of a single quantum emitter in a coupled-cavity structure and predict the strong antibunching even for single-atom cooperativity on the order of or smaller than unity. The potential of this quantum interference effect in the realization of strongly correlated photonic systems with only weak material nonlinearities is assessed by comparing on-site and inter-site correlations in a ring of three coupled photonic molecules.
We study the origin of 'frozen' photonic states in coupled Jaynes–Cummings–Hubbard arrays. For the case of half the array initially populated with photons while the other half is left empty, we show the emergence of a self-localized photon or 'frozen' states for specific values of the local atom–photon coupling. We analyse the dynamics in the quantum regime and discover important additional features that do not appear to be captured by a semi-classical treatment, which we analyse for different array sizes and filling fractions. We trace the origin of this interaction-induced photon 'freezing' to the suppression of the excitation of propagating modes in the system at large interaction strengths. We discuss in detail the possibility of experimentally probing the relevant transition by analysing the emitted photon correlations both in the idealized lossless case and more realistic scenarios when reasonable losses are included. We find a strong signature of the effect in the emitted photons statistics.
Strong effective photon-photon interactions mediated by atom-photon couplings have been routinely achievable in QED setups for some time now. Recently, there have been several proposals to push the physics of interacting photons into many- body distributed architectures. The essential idea is to coherently couple together arrays of QED resonators, such that photons can hop between resonators while interacting with each other inside each resonator. These proposed structures have attracted intense theoretical attention while simultaneously inspiring experimental efforts to realise this novel regime of strongly-correlated many-body states of light. A central challenge of both theoretical and practical importance is to understand the physics of such coupled resonator arrays (CRAs) beyond equilibrium, when unavoidable (or sometimes even desired) photon loss processes are accounted for. This thesis presents several studies whose purpose can roughly be divided in two aims. The first part studies just what constitutes a valid physical and computational representation of non-equilibrium driven-dissipative CRAs. Addressing these ques- tions constitutes essential groundwork for further investigations of CRA phenomena, as numerical experiments are likely to guide and interpret near-future experimen- tal array observations. The relatively small body of existing work on CRAs out of equilibrium has often truncated their full, rich physics. It is important to establish the effects and validity of these approximations. To this end we introduce powerful numerical algorithms capable of efficiently simulating the full dynamics of CRAs, and use them to characterise the non-equilibrium steady states of arrays reached under the combined influence of dissipation and pumping. Having established the rigour necessary to realistically describe CRAs, we exam- ine two novel phenomena observable in near-future small arrays. Firstly we relate a counter-intuitive ‘super bunching’ in the statistics of photons emitted from arrays engineered to demonstrate strong effective photon-photon repulsion at the single and two-photon level, to an interplay between the underlying eigen-structure and details of the non-equilibrium operation. Secondly we characterise a dynamical phenomenon in which domains of ‘frozen’ photons remain trapped in sufficiently nonlinear arrays. Finally we present a preliminary characterisation of a previously unexplored phase diagram of arrays under coherent two-photon pumping. Com- petition between the coherence injected by the pumping, photon interactions and delocalisation processes lead to interesting new physical signatures.