Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1509.01024

Dark states of atomic ensembles

Yuri Ozhigov, Nikita A. Skovoroda

Published Sep 3, 2015• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Ensemble of identical two level atoms in dark state neither adsorbs nor emits photons due to destructive interference. It can be used for the source of energy for nano-devices. In Tavis-Cummings cavity the change of light-atom coupling cannot destroy the dark state. We propose the method of dark states preparation based on photon pumping and drain from the optical cavity with two atoms, one from which has Stark or Zeeman splitting of energy levels. This splitting is removed before photon drain from the cavity. The dark state yield after one such cycle has the order of energy level splitting. We show the scheme of the experiment, in which such cycles repeat until the dark state is produced with high probability and the results of computer simulation.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1509.01024

Related papers

Dark states of atomic ensembles: properties and preparation

Yuri Ozhigov

An ensemble of identical two level atoms in dark state neither adsorbs nor emits photons due to destructive interference. Dark states have numerous applications. It can be used for the source of energy for nano-devices; the space of dark states is decoherence free and can serve as the carrier for the fault tolerant quantum computations, etc. Since a dark state does not interact with the electromagnetic field it is an eigenstate of Tavis-Cummings Hamiltonian and the preparation of such states requires the exit from this model. We show how to prepare a dark state by the photon pumping and drain from the optical cavity with two atoms, one from which has Stark or Zeeman splitting of energy levels. This splitting is removed before photon drain from the cavity. The dark state yield after one such cycle has the order of energy level splitting. We show the scheme of the experiment, in which such cycles repeat until the dark state is produced with high probability and the results of its computer simulation. The structure of dark states is briefly discussed.

Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Dec 30, 2016•2 citations

Measuring dark state number in the Tavis-Cummings model

L. Theerthagiri, Rajesh Narayanan, R. Ganesh

Quantum mechanics allows for light-matter setups that hold excitations without releasing them as light. Arising from destructive interference processes, they are best seen in a Tavis-Cummings-like setup where two-level atoms (or qubits) are placed within a lossy cavity. If the system is initialized with some qubits excited and some in the ground state, there is a non-zero probability that no photons will be emitted. This can be framed as a Stern-Gerlach measurement, with a detector to measure if one or more photons leave the cavity. If no photons are detected, the qubits collapse onto a dark state. This can be viewed as heralding of a dark state based on zero photon detection. Building upon this idea, we propose a protocol to measure the number of independent dark states. Moreover, we show that this quantity is robust to arbitrary levels of disorder in the qubit-photon coupling constants. We then discuss a phase transition where the number of dark states plays the role of an order parameter. This provides an exciting example of a phase transition that is completely insensitive to disorder.

arXiv:2509.14313•Sep 17, 2025•0 citations

Dark state number in the Tavis-Cummings model

L. Theerthagiri, Rajesh Narayanan, Ganesh R

Abstract Quantum mechanics allows for light-matter setups that hold excitations without releasing them as light. Arising from destructive interference processes, they are best seen in a Tavis-Cummings-like setup where two-level atoms (or qubits) are placed within a lossy cavity. If the system is initialized with some qubits excited and some in the ground state, there is a non-zero likelihood of no photons being emitted. This can be framed as a Stern-Gerlach measurement, with a detector to measure if one or more photons leave the cavity. If no photons are detected, the qubits collapse onto a dark state. This can be viewed as heralding of a dark state based on zero photon detection. Building upon this idea, we propose a protocol to measure the number of independent dark states. Remarkably, we show that this quantity is robust to arbitrary levels of disorder in the qubit-photon coupling constants. This provides a rare example of an observable that remains unchanged with any amount of disorder. We then discuss a phase transition where the number of dark states plays the role of an order parameter. This provides a rare example of a phase transition that is completely insensitive to disorder.

•Jun 30, 2026•0 citations

Quantum lock on dark states

Yuri Ozhigov

We propose quantum protection circuit (quantum lock), based on dark states of ensembles of two-level atoms in optical cavity. The secret key is the splitting of atoms into pairs, and publicly accessible part of the lock is the tensor product of EPR singlets, corresponding to the given splitting. To open the lock one must move synchronously pairs of atoms from the correct splitting to the other cavity; the lock will open if atoms do not emit photons. This scheme has perfect secrecy: it is impossible to hack it, even with effective solutions of any classical computational problems, in contrast to the RSA scheme. The method of obtaining dark states through Stark shift of atomic excitation energy is also proposed. This scheme makes possible to create secret keys of a few tens of atoms that is sufficient for the most practical applications.

arXiv:1710.04065•International Conference on Micro- and Nano-Electronics (ICMNE)•Mar 15, 2019•0 citations

Optical cavity quantum electrodynamics with dark-state polaritons

Guang Lin, Jiangbin Gong, Jie Yang +4 more

We present a theoretical scheme to study optical cavity quantum electrodynamics using dark-state polaritons. Exploiting the highly tunable lifetimes of the photons in the form of cavity dark-state polaritons, we push the strong coupling of single optical photons to an effective two-level emitter in a Rydberg-blockade atomic ensemble to an unprecedented regime. The resulting Jaynes--Cummings model with extremely strong coupling is of fundamental interest. We discuss applications in controlled quantum Rabi oscillation, nonlinear spectroscopy of the Jaynes-Cummings ladder, as well as the generation of nonclassical states, all based on light-matter interactions in the optical domain.

Physical Review A•Apr 11, 2014•13 citations

Single-atom single-photon coupling facilitated by atomic-ensemble dark-state mechanisms

Andrew C. J. Wade, Marco Mattioli, Klaus Mølmer

We propose to couple single atomic qubits to photons incident on a cavity containing an atomic ensemble of a different species that mediates the coupling via Rydberg interactions. Subject to a classical field and the cavity field, the ensemble forms a collective dark state which is resonant with the input photon, while excitation of a qubit atom leads to a secondary ``dark'' state that splits the cavity resonance. The two different dark-state mechanisms yield zero and $\ensuremath{\pi}$ reflection phase shifts and can be used to implement quantum gates between atomic and optical qubits.

arXiv:1605.05132•Physical Review A•Nov 16, 2016•32 citations
Ensemble of identical two level atoms in dark state neither adsorbs nor emits photons due to destructive interference. It can be used for the source of energy for nano-devices. In Tavis-Cummings cavity the change of light-atom coupling cannot destroy the dark state. We propose the method of dark states preparation based on photon pumping and drain from the optical cavity with two atoms, one from which has Stark or Zeeman splitting of energy levels. This splitting is removed before photon drain from the cavity. The dark state yield after one such cycle has the order of energy level splitting. We show the scheme of the experiment, in which such cycles repeat until the dark state is produced with high probability and the results of computer simulation.
An ensemble of identical two level atoms in dark state neither adsorbs nor emits photons due to destructive interference. Dark states have numerous applications. It can be used for the source of energy for nano-devices; the space of dark states is decoherence free and can serve as the carrier for the fault tolerant quantum computations, etc. Since a dark state does not interact with the electromagnetic field it is an eigenstate of Tavis-Cummings Hamiltonian and the preparation of such states requires the exit from this model. We show how to prepare a dark state by the photon pumping and drain from the optical cavity with two atoms, one from which has Stark or Zeeman splitting of energy levels. This splitting is removed before photon drain from the cavity. The dark state yield after one such cycle has the order of energy level splitting. We show the scheme of the experiment, in which such cycles repeat until the dark state is produced with high probability and the results of its computer simulation. The structure of dark states is briefly discussed.
Quantum mechanics allows for light-matter setups that hold excitations without releasing them as light. Arising from destructive interference processes, they are best seen in a Tavis-Cummings-like setup where two-level atoms (or qubits) are placed within a lossy cavity. If the system is initialized with some qubits excited and some in the ground state, there is a non-zero probability that no photons will be emitted. This can be framed as a Stern-Gerlach measurement, with a detector to measure if one or more photons leave the cavity. If no photons are detected, the qubits collapse onto a dark state. This can be viewed as heralding of a dark state based on zero photon detection. Building upon this idea, we propose a protocol to measure the number of independent dark states. Moreover, we show that this quantity is robust to arbitrary levels of disorder in the qubit-photon coupling constants. We then discuss a phase transition where the number of dark states plays the role of an order parameter. This provides an exciting example of a phase transition that is completely insensitive to disorder.
Abstract Quantum mechanics allows for light-matter setups that hold excitations without releasing them as light. Arising from destructive interference processes, they are best seen in a Tavis-Cummings-like setup where two-level atoms (or qubits) are placed within a lossy cavity. If the system is initialized with some qubits excited and some in the ground state, there is a non-zero likelihood of no photons being emitted. This can be framed as a Stern-Gerlach measurement, with a detector to measure if one or more photons leave the cavity. If no photons are detected, the qubits collapse onto a dark state. This can be viewed as heralding of a dark state based on zero photon detection. Building upon this idea, we propose a protocol to measure the number of independent dark states. Remarkably, we show that this quantity is robust to arbitrary levels of disorder in the qubit-photon coupling constants. This provides a rare example of an observable that remains unchanged with any amount of disorder. We then discuss a phase transition where the number of dark states plays the role of an order parameter. This provides a rare example of a phase transition that is completely insensitive to disorder.
We propose quantum protection circuit (quantum lock), based on dark states of ensembles of two-level atoms in optical cavity. The secret key is the splitting of atoms into pairs, and publicly accessible part of the lock is the tensor product of EPR singlets, corresponding to the given splitting. To open the lock one must move synchronously pairs of atoms from the correct splitting to the other cavity; the lock will open if atoms do not emit photons. This scheme has perfect secrecy: it is impossible to hack it, even with effective solutions of any classical computational problems, in contrast to the RSA scheme. The method of obtaining dark states through Stark shift of atomic excitation energy is also proposed. This scheme makes possible to create secret keys of a few tens of atoms that is sufficient for the most practical applications.
We present a theoretical scheme to study optical cavity quantum electrodynamics using dark-state polaritons. Exploiting the highly tunable lifetimes of the photons in the form of cavity dark-state polaritons, we push the strong coupling of single optical photons to an effective two-level emitter in a Rydberg-blockade atomic ensemble to an unprecedented regime. The resulting Jaynes--Cummings model with extremely strong coupling is of fundamental interest. We discuss applications in controlled quantum Rabi oscillation, nonlinear spectroscopy of the Jaynes-Cummings ladder, as well as the generation of nonclassical states, all based on light-matter interactions in the optical domain.
We propose to couple single atomic qubits to photons incident on a cavity containing an atomic ensemble of a different species that mediates the coupling via Rydberg interactions. Subject to a classical field and the cavity field, the ensemble forms a collective dark state which is resonant with the input photon, while excitation of a qubit atom leads to a secondary ``dark'' state that splits the cavity resonance. The two different dark-state mechanisms yield zero and $\ensuremath{\pi}$ reflection phase shifts and can be used to implement quantum gates between atomic and optical qubits.