Abstract
Atom arrays are a new type of quantum light-matter interface. Here, we propose to employ one-dimensional ordered arrays as atomic waveguides. These arrays support optical guided modes that do not decay into free space. We show that these modes can be harnessed to mediate tunable, long-range interactions between additional "impurity qubits" coupled to the chain, without need for photonic structures. The efficient coupling between qubits and atomic waveguides enables the realization of tunable qubit-qubit interactions, which can be short- or long-range, dissipative or coherent, as well as chiral. Moreover, owing to the two-level nature of atoms, these waveguides are intrinsically quantum. In contrast to classical waveguides, where photons do not interact with each other, atomic waveguides display strong non-linearities, which create a tunable dissipative channel for qubit-qubit interactions, and opens the door to the exploration of many-body physics between guided photons. This physics is universal as it only relies on photon interference and can also be observed with other types of quantum emitters, such as those in molecular or solid-state systems.
Highlights
The realization of efficient interactions between photons and atoms is a central challenge in quantum optics
This has propelled the development of the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) and, more recently, of waveguide QED, where atoms are coupled to one-dimensional (1D) photonic reservoirs, such as fibers [8,9,10,11] and photonic crystal waveguides [12,13,14,15]
Waveguide QED offers efficient light-matter coupling as photons are confined in small volumes and can be almost deterministically exchanged between distant atoms
Summary
The realization of efficient interactions between photons and atoms is a central challenge in quantum optics. Interference in photon emission leads to the emergence of subradiant states, which cannot decay into free space [25,31,32,33,34,35] These states can be understood as guided modes of the atomic chain [25,31,34], and can be used to mediate both coherent and dissipative interactions between qubits that are coupled to the atomic waveguide. Atomic waveguides are an intrinsically quantum reservoir, as a single atom cannot be excited twice This tunable nonlinearity sets a fundamental difference between qubit interactions mediated by an atomic waveguide and those in traditional nanophotonic structures.
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