We have theoretically studied the scattering of two-photon pulses from a spatially-separated array of two-level atoms coupled to the waveguide. A general analytical expression for the scattered pulse has been obtained. The contributions of various single-eigenstate and double-excited eigenstates of the array have been analyzed. We have also calculated the dependence of the time incident photons are stored in the array on its period and the number of atoms. The largest storage times correspond to the structures with the anti-Bragg period, equal to the quarter of the wavelength of light at the atom resonance frequency $λ/4$.
We have theoretically studied the scattering of two-photon pulses from a spatially-separated array of two-level atoms coupled to the waveguide. A general analytical expression for the scattered pulse has been obtained. The contributions of various single-eigenstate and double-excited eigenstates of the array have been analyzed. We have also calculated the dependence of the time incident photons are stored in the array on its period and the number of atoms. The largest storage times correspond to the structures with the anti-Bragg period, equal to the quarter of the wavelength of light at the atom resonance frequency λ/4.
We theoretically studied the scattering of short two-photon pulses from a spatially separated array of two-level atoms coupled to the waveguide. A general analytical expression for the scattered pulse has been obtained. The contributions of various single-eigenstate and double-excited eigenstates of the array have been analyzed. We also calculated how the time, during which the incident photons are stored in the array, depends on the array period and the number of atoms. The largest storage times correspond to the structures with the anti-Bragg period, equal to the quarter of the wavelength of light at the atom resonance frequency $\ensuremath{\lambda}/4$.
Abstract We study two-photon scattering by a two-level giant atom in a waveguide. We first study the case that the giant atom is coupled to the waveguide via two coupling points, and obtain Bethe ansatz (BA) eigenstates and eigenvalues in the Hilbert space of two-excitation. Then we derive bound states by subtracting the states corresponding to BA solutions from the entire two-excitation Hilbert space, and construct the two-photon scattering matrix ( S -matrix) by using BA eigenstates and bound states. We further study the properties of output states, which include both the scattering and bound states, for arbitrarily incident two-photon states by using a concrete example. We find that the oscillation period of the scattering states and decay rates of the bound states strongly depend on the distance between two coupling points. Moreover, we find that the two-photon correlation in the bound states can be enhanced by changing such distance when the total energy of two incident photons equals to two times of single photon resonance energy. We also generalize our study to the case that the giant atom is coupled to the waveguide via N coupling points. We obtain all the eigenstates and eigenvalues of the S -matrix and construct the S -matrix. Comparing with the case of the two coupling points, we find the photon correlation can be further enhanced by increasing the number of the coupling points for the same incident states when the distance of any two nearest neighbor coupling points is half of the wavelength.
Light transport in periodic waveguides coupled to two-level atoms is investigated theoretically. By using optical Bloch equations and a photonic modal formalism, we derive a convenient semi-analytical expression for calculating the scattering matrix of single atoms trapped in periodic waveguides. The expression that holds for both photonic and plasmonic waveguides represents a basic building block toward the study of collective effects arising from photon-mediated multi-atom interactions in periodic waveguides.
We present a quantum dynamical study of pulsed few-photon scattering from a single artificial atom, consisting of a two-level system (TLS) or qubit, in a waveguide QED system, directly comparing and contrasting two different quantum theoretical simulation methods: (i) an input-output scattering approach that uses frequency-dependent scattering matrices, and (ii) a matrix product states (MPS) approach, which uses quantum noise operators in time bins and a tensor network technique to solve the time-dependent waveguide function for the entire system. Beginning with pulsed excitation using one-photon and two-photon Fock state pulses, we first show how to compute time-dependent observables with the scattering matrix approach, in terms of frequency integrals that encode the pulse spectrum, including how to extract the population dynamics of the excited quantum emitter, as well as the linear and nonlinear contributions. We present solutions for both symmetric and chiral TLS coupling. We then show how to compute the qubit and field observables in a more direct way using MPS, and obtain the characteristic bird-like shape for the two-photon correlation function at two times, which has been observed in recent experiments. We compare and contrast both of these methods, for one and two-photon excitation pulses, and show excellent agreement. We also present a study of the linear and nonlinear contributions, which can easily be calculated using scattering theory, and show the important role of pulse duration. Finally, we demonstrate the clear advantages of MPS by easily going to higher N-photon excitations, and show selected example population dynamics of up to eight-photon Fock-state pulses, manifesting in clear nonlinear population oscillations during the pulse interaction, similar to classical Rabi oscillations, but with quantum input fields that have a vanishing electric field expectation value.
We present a full multimode treatment of the interaction of the quantized radiation field with a single two-level atom in a one-dimensional waveguide configuration. Starting with an incident pulse consisting of an arbitrary (finite) number of photons in a general initial state, we derive the equations of motion and a closed-form expression for the shape of the pulse after its interaction with the atom. We then specialize our results to the two-photon case where a number of analytical results can be derived, for both unidirectional and bidirectional systems. We study the effects of different pulse shapes, the manifestations of the entangled, so-called bound state of the two photons, single- and two-photon detection probabilities, and provide simple approximate results for the strong-coupling (or adiabatic, or long-pulse) regime. We also discuss the requirements for a true unidirectional setup, and the application of such a setup to photon sorting proposed by Witthaut, Lukin, and S\o{}rensen [Europhys. Lett. 97, 50007 (2012)].
The coupling of atomic arrays and one-dimensional subwavelength waveguides gives rise to interesting photon transport properties, such as recent experimental demonstrations of large Bragg reflection, and paves the way for a variety of potential applications in the field of quantum nonlinear optics. Here, we present a theoretical analysis for the process of single-photon scattering in this configuration using a full microscopic approach. Based on this formalism, we analyze the spectral dependencies for different scattering channels from either ordered or disordered arrays. The developed approach is entirely applicable for a single-photon scattering from a quasi-one-dimensional array of multilevel atoms with degenerate ground-state energy structure. Our approach provides an important framework for including not only Rayleigh but also Raman channels in the microscopic description of the cooperative scattering process.