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Journal of Physics Conference Series

Electromagnetically induced transparency and photon-photon interactions with Rydberg atoms

David Petrosyan, Michael Fleischhauer

Published Mar 14, 2012• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We discuss electromagnetically induced transparency in a cold ensemble of atoms optically excited to the Rydberg states. Strong dipole-dipole or van der Waals interactions between the atomic Rydberg states translate into large nonlocal nonlinearities for a propagating probe field. In the case of weak quantum fields, this can be used to attain a conditional phase shift of π between pairs of single photons realizing a deterministic photonic phase gate. For stronger fields, long-range interactions between the atoms constrain the medium to behave as a collection of superatoms, each comprising a blockade volume that can accommodate at most one Rydberg excitation. The propagation of a probe field is affected by its two-photon correlations within the blockade distance, which are strongly damped due to low saturation threshold of the superatoms. Our calculations reproduce and interpret the results of recent experiments.

DOI
10.1088/1742-6596/350/1/012001

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We discuss electromagnetically induced transparency in a cold ensemble of atoms optically excited to the Rydberg states. Strong dipole-dipole or van der Waals interactions between the atomic Rydberg states translate into large nonlocal nonlinearities for a propagating probe field. In the case of weak quantum fields, this can be used to attain a conditional phase shift of π between pairs of single photons realizing a deterministic photonic phase gate. For stronger fields, long-range interactions between the atoms constrain the medium to behave as a collection of superatoms, each comprising a blockade volume that can accommodate at most one Rydberg excitation. The propagation of a probe field is affected by its two-photon correlations within the blockade distance, which are strongly damped due to low saturation threshold of the superatoms. Our calculations reproduce and interpret the results of recent experiments.
We present a theory of electromagnetically induced transparency in a cold ensemble of strongly interacting Rydberg atoms. Long-range interactions between the atoms constrain the medium to behave as a collection of superatoms, each comprising a blockade volume that can accommodate at most one Rydberg excitation. The propagation of a probe field is affected by its two-photon correlations within the blockade distance, which are strongly damped due to low saturation threshold of the superatoms. Our model is computationally very efficient and is in quantitative agreement with the results of the recent experiment of Pritchard et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 193603 (2010)].
Hollow-core photonic-crystal waveguides filled with cold atoms can support giant optical nonlinearities through nondispersive propagation of light tightly confined in the transverse direction. Here we explore electromagnetically induced transparency is such structures, considering a pair of counterpropagating weak quantum fields in the medium of coherently driven atoms in the ladder configuration. Strong dipole-dipole interactions between optically excited, polarized Rydberg states of the atoms translate into a large dispersive interaction between the two fields. This can be used to attain a spatially homogeneous conditional phase shift of $\ensuremath{\pi}$ for two single-photon pulses, realizing a deterministic photonic phase gate, or to implement a quantum nondemolition measurement of the photon number in the signal pulse by a coherent probe, thereby achieving a heralded source of single- or few-photon pulses.
We present an improved superatom model for examining nonlinear optical responses of cold Rydberg atoms in the regime of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). By going beyond the weak-probe approximation, we find that several higher-order collective states should be included to correctly describe the coherent Rydberg excitation of superatoms. Otherwise, numerical results based on the simple ladder system of superatoms will contribute wrong predictions on light intensity and photon correlation of the transmitted probe field. In particular, a great photon-bunching effect will be improperly expected somewhere out of the EIT window in one dilute atomic sample. The essence of this improved superatom model lies in that it can provide reliable predictions on the nonlinear Rydberg-EIT phenomena even in dense atomic samples and may be extended to realize lossless conditional light interactions in appropriate multilevel systems exhibiting dipole blockade.
In the regime of Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency, we study the correlated behaviors between the transmission spectra of a pair of probe fields passing through respective parallel one-dimensional cold Rydberg ensembles. Due to the van der Waals (vdW) interactions between Rydberg atoms, each ensemble exhibits a local optical nonlinearity, where the output EIT spectra are sensitive to both the input probe intensity and the photonic statistics. More interestingly, a nonlocal optical nonlinearity emerges between two spatially separated ensembles, as the probe transmissivity and probe correlation at the exit of one Rydberg ensemble can be manipulated by the probe field at the input of the other Rydberg ensemble. Realizing correlated Rydberg EITs holds great potential for applications in quantum control, quantum network, quantum walk and so on.
A three-level atomic medium can be made transparent to a resonant probe field in the presence of a strong control field acting on an adjacent atomic transition to a long-lived state, which can be represented by a highly excited Rydberg state. The long-range interactions between the Rydberg state atoms then translate into strong, non-local, dispersive or absorptive interactions between the probe photons, which can be used to achieve deterministic quantum logic gates and single photon sources. Here we show that long-range dipole–dipole exchange interaction with one or more spins—two-level systems represented by atoms in suitable Rydberg states—can play the role of control field for the optically dense medium of atoms. This induces transparency of the medium for a number of probe photons n p not exceeding the number of spins n s , while all the excess photons are resonantly absorbed upon propagation. In the most practical case of a single spin atom prepared in the Rydberg state, the medium is thus transparent only to a single input probe photon. For larger number of spins n s , all n p ≤ n s photon components of the probe field would experience transparency but with an n p -dependent group velocity.
Abstract In the regime of Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency, we study the correlated behaviors between the transmission spectra of a pair of probe fields passing through respective parallel one-dimensional cold Rydberg ensembles. Due to the van der Waals (vdW) interactions between Rydberg atoms, each ensemble exhibits a local optical nonlinearity, where the output EIT spectra are sensitive to both the input probe intensity and the photonic statistics. More interestingly, a nonlocal optical nonlinearity emerges between two spatially separated ensembles, as the probe transmissivity and probe correlation at the exit of one Rydberg ensemble can be manipulated by the probe field at the input of the other Rydberg ensemble. Realizing correlated Rydberg EITs holds great potential for applications in quantum control, quantum network, quantum walk and so on.