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arXiv:2501.07254 · Physical Review A

Selective band interaction and long-range hopping in a structured environment with giant atoms

Ying Xia, Jiaqi Li, Xin Wang

Published May 7, 2025• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Giant atoms, which couple to the environment at multiple discrete points, exhibit various nontrivial phenomena in quantum optics due to their nonlocal couplings. In this study, we propose a one-dimensional cross-stitch ladder lattice featuring both a dispersive band and a flat band. By modulating the relative phase between the coupling points, the giant atom selectively interacts with either band. First, we analyze the scenario where the dispersive and flat bands intersect at two points, and the atomic frequency lies within the band. Unlike the small atom, which simultaneously interacts with both bands, a single giant atom with a controllable phase interacts exclusively with the dispersive or flat band. Second, in the band-gap regime, where two atoms interact through bound-state overlaps manifesting as dipole-dipole interactions, we demonstrate that giant atoms enable deterministic long-range hopping and energy exchange with higher fidelity than small atoms. These findings provide promising applications in quantum information processing, offering enhanced controllability and selectivity for quantum systems and devices.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.111.053706

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Giant atoms, which couple to the environment at multiple discrete points, exhibit various nontrivial phenomena in quantum optics due to their nonlocal couplings. In this study, we propose a one-dimensional cross-stitch ladder lattice featuring both a dispersive band and a flat band. By modulating the relative phase between the coupling points, the giant atom selectively interacts with either band. First, we analyze the scenario where the dispersive and flat bands intersect at two points, and the atomic frequency lies within the band. Unlike the small atom, which simultaneously interacts with both bands, a single giant atom with a controllable phase interacts exclusively with the dispersive or flat band. Second, in the band-gap regime, where two atoms interact through bound-state overlaps manifesting as dipole-dipole interactions, we demonstrate that giant atoms enable deterministic long-range hopping and energy exchange with higher fidelity than small atoms. These findings provide promising applications in quantum information processing, offering enhanced controllability and selectivity for quantum systems and devices.
Giant atoms, quantum emitters that couple to light at multiple discrete points, are emerging as a new paradigm in quantum optics due to their many promising properties, such as decoherence-free interaction. While most previous work has considered giant atoms coupled to open continuous waveguides or a single giant atom coupled to a structured bath, here we study the interaction between two giant atoms mediated by a structured waveguide, e.g., a photonic crystal waveguide. This environment is characterized by a finite energy band and a band gap, which affect atomic dynamics beyond the Markovian regime. Here we show that, inside the band, decoherence-free interaction is possible for different atom-cavity detunings, but is degraded from the continuous-waveguide case by time delay and other non-Markovian effects. Outside the band, where atoms interact through the overlap of bound states, we find that giant atoms can interact more strongly and over longer distances than small atoms for some parameters, for instance, when restricting the maximum coupling strength achievable per coupling point. The results presented here may find applications in quantum simulation and quantum gate implementation.
Giant atoms are quantum emitters that can couple to light at multiple discrete points. Such atoms have been shown to interact without decohering via a one-dimensional waveguide. Here, we study how giant atoms behave when coupled to a two-dimensional square lattice of coupled cavities, an environment characterized by a finite-energy band and band gaps. In particular, we describe the role that bound states in the continuum (BICs) play in how giant atoms avoid decoherence. By developing numerical methods, we are able to investigate the dynamics of the system and show the appearance of interfering BICs within a single giant atom, as well as oscillating BICs between many giant atoms. In this way, we find the geometric arrangements of atomic coupling points that yield protection from decoherence in the two-dimensional lattice. These results on engineering the interaction between light and matter may find applications in quantum simulation and quantum information processing. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
To go beyond quantum optics in free-space setups, atom-light interfaces with structured photonic environments are often employed to realize unconventional quantum electrodynamics (QED) phenomena. However, when employed as quantum buses, those long-distance nanostructures are limited by fabrication disorders. In this work, we alternatively propose to realize structured light-matter interactions by engineering multiple coupling points of hybrid giant atom--conventional environments without any periodic structure. We present a general optimization method to obtain the real-space coupling sequence for multiple coupling points. We report a broadband chiral emission for frequency-tunable giant emitters, with no analog in other quantum setups. Moreover, we show that the QED phenomena in the band-gap environment, such as fractional atomic decay and dipole-dipole interactions mediated by a bound state, can be observed in our setup. Numerical results indicate that our proposal is robust against fabrication disorders of the coupling sequence. Our work opens up a route for realizing unconventional light-matter interactions.
Giant atoms, where the dipole approximation ceases to be valid, allow us to observe unconventional quantum optical phenomena arising from interference and time-delay effects. Most previous studies consider giant atoms coupling to conventional materials with right-handed dispersion. In this study, we first investigate the quantum dynamics of a giant atom interacting with left-handed superlattice metamaterials. Different from those right-handed counterparts, the left-handed superlattices exhibit an asymmetric band gap generated by anomalous dispersive bands and Bragg scattering bands. With the assumption that the giant atom is in resonance with the continuous dispersive energy band, spontaneous emission will undergo periodic enhancement or suppression due to the interference effect. At the resonant position, there is a significant discrepancy in the spontaneous decay rates between the upper and lower bands which arises from the differences in group velocity. Second, we explore the non-Markovian dynamics of the giant atom by considering the emitter's frequency outside the energy band, where bound states will be induced by the interference between two coupling points. By employing both analytical and numerical methods, we demonstrate that the steady atomic population will be periodically modulated, driven by variations in the size of the giant atom. The presence of asymmetric band edges leads to diverse interference dynamics. Finally, we consider the case of two identical emitters coupled to the waveguide and find that the energy within the two emitters undergoes exchange through the mechanism of Rabi oscillations.
We explore the spontaneous emission dynamics of a giant atom coupled to a photonic Creutz ladder, focusing on how flat-band frustration and synthetic gauge fields shape atom–photon interactions. The Creutz ladder exhibits perfectly flat bands, Aharonov–Bohm caging, and topological features arising from its nontrivial hopping structure. By embedding the giant atom at multiple spatially separated sites, we reveal interference-driven emission control and the formation of nonradiative bound states. Using both spectral and time-domain analyses, we uncover strong non-Markovian dynamics characterized by persistent oscillations, long-lived entanglement, and recoherence cycles. The emergence of bound-state poles in the spectral function is accompanied by spatially localized photonic profiles and directionally asymmetric emission, even in the absence of band dispersion. Calculations of von Neumann entropy and atomic purity confirm the formation of coherence-preserving dressed states in the flat-band regime. Furthermore, the spacetime structure of the emitted field displays robust zig-zag interference patterns and synthetic chirality, underscoring the role of geometry and topology in photon transport. Our results demonstrate how flat-band photonic lattices can be leveraged to engineer tunable atom–photon entanglement, suppress radiative losses, and create structured decoherence-free subspaces for quantum information applications.
In this paper, we investigate the bound states and the effective interaction between a pair of giant atoms, which couples to the coupled resonator waveguide in a nested configuration. To suppress the harmful individual and collective dissipations to the waveguide, we consider the dispersive coupling scheme, where the frequency of the giant atoms are far away from the propagating band of the waveguide. In our scheme, the atomic interaction can be induced by the overlap between the bound states in the gap. We demonstrate the relative position dependent atomic coupling and explore its application in the state transfer. We find that the transfer fidelity of a superposition state can approach 0.999. Therefore, our scheme is useful for designing robust quantum information processing. • Bound states of giant atom waveguide coupled system are investigated. • The individual and collective dissipations of giant atoms induced by waveguide is completely suppressed. • The quantum state transfer scheme with fidelity approaching 0.999.