Preparation of a single-photon dark state in a chiral quantum system

Abstract

We examine conditions under which an open quantum system composed of a driven degenerated parametric oscillator cavity and a driven two-level atom coupled to a waveguide could decay to a pure dark state rather than the expected mixed state. The calculations are carried out analytically in a low dimensional Hilbert space truncated at the double-excitation states of the combined system. The validity of the truncation is confirmed by the exact numerical analysis. It is found that one way to produce the pure state is to chirally couple the cavity and the atom to the waveguide. Another way to produce the pure state is to drive the cavity and the atom with unequal detunings. In both cases, if the driving fields are weak, the produced state is a coherent superposition of only the single-excitation and ground states of the combined system. In addition, we have found a direct correspondence between the generation of the dark state and the photon blockade effect. In other words, the generation of the dark state acts as a blockade to the number of photons so that only a single photon can be present in the cavity. We investigate the normalized second-order correlation function of the cavity field and find that the conditions under which the correlation function vanishes coincide with the conditions for the creation of the pure dark state. This system is, therefore, suggested as an alternative scheme for the generation of single-photon states.