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Physical Review Research

Quasiparticle properties of stationary light polaritons in atoms

U-Shin Kim, Yoon-Ho Kim

Published Jun 12, 2025• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We theoretically analyze the quasiparticle properties of stationary light polariton (SLP) modes in atoms via perturbative approaches of effective atom-light interaction Hamiltonian. First, we explicitly show the five SLP eigenmodes of the Hilbert space of the SLP system. Then, the quasiparticle properties, such as group velocities and effective masses of SLPs, are investigated under various parametric conditions, which include the emergence of negative effective mass and effective mass singularity. Finally, we derive the intrinsic lifetimes of each SLP mode, which features a complementary relation among the lifetimes of SLP modes. Our results offer quantitative analysis of the quasiparticle properties in Hilbert space spanned by the SLP modes, and it is expected to contribute to SLP-based atom-light interaction applications, such as photonic quantum gates, optical simulation of many-body physics, and exotic dispersion engineering.

DOI
10.1103/htzs-ycg9

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We theoretically analyze the quasiparticle properties of stationary light polariton (SLP) modes in atoms via perturbative approaches of effective atom-light interaction Hamiltonian. First, we explicitly show the five SLP eigenmodes of the Hilbert space of the SLP system. Then, the quasiparticle properties, such as group velocities and effective masses of SLPs, are investigated under various parametric conditions, which include the emergence of negative effective mass and effective mass singularity. Finally, we derive the intrinsic lifetimes of each SLP mode, which features a complementary relation among the lifetimes of SLP modes. Our results offer quantitative analysis of the quasiparticle properties in Hilbert space spanned by the SLP modes, and it is expected to contribute to SLP-based atom-light interaction applications, such as photonic quantum gates, optical simulation of many-body physics, and exotic dispersion engineering.
Abstract We propose the optical simulation of the Lieb–Liniger interaction using one-dimensional (1D) stationary light polaritons (SLPs) with nonlinear self-interaction. Our analysis reveals that the dark-state polariton (DSP) mode of the self-interacting SLP satisfies a Schrödinger-like equation exhibiting the Lieb–Liniger interaction, where both the effective mass and interaction strength can be tuned optically. We demonstrate the transition of the Lieb–Liniger interaction from a repulsion-dominant regime to a thermalization-dominant regime using experimentally achievable parameters. This results in the second-order correlation of the DSP mode spanning from anti-bunching to bunching statistics. By advancing the quantum simulation of the Lieb–Liniger model, our work opens new avenues for exploring complex Lieb–Liniger physics, such as interaction quenching and multi-particle bound states. Moreover, it lays the groundwork for developing novel single-photon sources operating in the anti-bunching regime, featuring narrow bandwidth, directional emission, and built-in quantum memory functionality.
Polaritons are the collective excitations of many atoms dressed by resonant photons, which can be used to explain the slow light propagation with the mechanism of electromagnetically induced transparency. As quasiparticles, these collective excitations possess the typical feature of the matter particles, which can be reflected and deflected by the inhomogeneous medium in its spatial motion with some velocity. In this paper we develop a quantum theory to systematically describe the spatial motion of polaritons in inhomogeneous magnetic and optical fields. This theoretical approach treats these quasiparticles through an effective Schr\"odinger equation with anisotropic dispersion that the longitudinal motion is similar to an ultrarelativistic motion of a ``slow light velocity'' while the transverse motion is of nonrelativity with certain effective mass. We find that, after passing through the EIT medium, the light ray bends due to the spatial-dependent profile of external field. This phenomenon explicitly demonstrates the exotic corpuscular and anisotropic property of polaritons.
The generation of stationary distributions of light with three-dimensional confinement is discussed and a novel scheme for Bose-Einstein condensation of the associated quasi-particles, dark-state polaritons (DSP), is proposed. DSPs are created in the Raman interaction of laser fields with atoms and are the basis of ultra-slow, stopped, and stationary light. Stationary DSPs have a quadratic dispersion profile with very small and variable effective mass and have a long intrinsic lifetime. Due to the small mass the corresponding condensation temperature can be many orders of magnitude higher than that of atoms. After introducing stationary dark-state polaritons their incoherent generation and thermalization is discussed and conditions for condensation analyzed. Finally potential methods for an experimental observation of the condensation will be put forward.
We propose and analyze a mechanism for Bose-Einstein condensation of stationary dark-state polaritons. Dark-state polaritons (DSPs) are formed in the interaction of light with laser-driven 3-level Lambda-type atoms and are the basis of phenomena such as electromagnetically induced transparency, ultraslow, and stored light. They have long intrinsic lifetimes and in a stationary setup, a 3D quadratic dispersion profile with variable effective mass. Since DSPs are bosons, they can undergo a Bose-Einstein condensation at a critical temperature which can be many orders of magnitude larger than that of atoms. We show that thermalization of polaritons can occur via elastic collisions mediated by a resonantly enhanced optical Kerr nonlinearity on a time scale short compared to the decay time. Finally, condensation can be observed by turning stationary into propagating polaritons and monitoring the emitted light.
The stationary light pulse (SLP) refers to a zero-group-velocity optical pulse in an atomic ensemble prepared by two counter-propagating driving fields. Despite the uniqueness of an optical pulse trapped within an atomic medium without a cavity, observations of SLP so far have been limited to trapping a single optical pulse due to the stringent SLP phase-matching condition, and this has severely hindered the development of SLP-based applications. Here, we first show theoretically that the SLP process in fact supports two phase-matching conditions and we then utilize the result to experimentally demonstrate simultaneous SLP trapping of two optical pulses for the duration from0.8 μs0.8\ \mu \mathsf{s}0.8 μsto2.0 μs2.0\ \mu \mathsf{s}2.0 μs. The characteristic dissipation time, obtained by the release efficiency measurement, is1.22 μs1.22\ \mu \mathsf{s}1.22 μs, which corresponds to an effective Q-factor of2.9×1092.9\times 10^{9}2.9×109[1]. As our SLP system reports a large effective N-atom cooperativity of8×1068\times 10^{6}8×106, our work is expected to bring forth interesting SLP-based applications, such as, efficient photon-photon interaction, spatially multi-mode coherent quantum memory, creation of exotic photonic gas states, etc.
Efficient photon–photon interaction is one of the key elements for realizing quantum information processing. The interaction, however, must often be mediated through an atomic medium due to the bosonic nature of photons, and the interaction time, which is critically linked to the efficiency, depends on the properties of the atom–photon interaction. While the electromagnetically induced transparency effect does offer the possibility of photonic quantum memory, it does not enhance the interaction time as it fully maps the photonic state to an atomic state. The stationary light pulse (SLP) effect, on the contrary, traps the photonic state inside an atomic medium with zero group velocity, opening up the possibility of enhanced interaction time. In this work, we report the first experimental demonstration of trapping a free-propagating single-photon into a cold atomic ensemble via the quantum SLP (QSLP) process. We conclusively show that the quantum properties of the single-photon state are preserved well during the QSLP process. Our work paves the way for new approaches for efficient photon–photon interactions, exotic photonic states, and many-body simulations in photonic systems.