Abstract
Understanding strong cooperative optical responses in dense and cold atomic ensembles is vital for fundamental science and emerging quantum technologies. Methodologies for characterizing light-induced quantum effects in such systems, however, are still lacking. Here we unambiguously identify significant quantum many-body effects, robust to position fluctuations and strong dipole–dipole interactions, in light scattered from planar atomic ensembles by comparing full quantum simulations with a semiclassical model neglecting quantum fluctuations. We find pronounced quantum effects at high atomic densities, light close to saturation intensity, and around subradiant resonances. Such conditions also maximize spin–spin correlations and entanglement between atoms, revealing the microscopic origin of light-induced quantum effects. In several regimes of interest, our approximate model reproduces light transmission remarkably well, permitting analysis of otherwise numerically inaccessible large ensembles, in which we observe many-body analogues of resonance power broadening, vacuum Rabi splitting, and significant suppression in cooperative reflection from atomic arrays.
Highlights
Understanding strong cooperative optical responses in dense and cold atomic ensembles is vital for fundamental science and emerging quantum technologies
We find collective phenomena due to DD interactions that are many-body analogs of power broadening and vacuum Rabi splitting of atomic resonances in cavities[37,38], and demonstrate a significant effect of intensity on the transmission that may restrict the utilization of atomic arrays as highly reflective cooperative mirrors
Because of the DD interactions, the polarization and populations depend on two-body correlations hψ^yaðrÞψ^ybðr0Þψ^cðr0Þψ^dðrÞi, where a, b, c, d ∈ {g, e}, representing the correlations in the optical response of an atom at r given the presence of a second atom at r0
Summary
Understanding strong cooperative optical responses in dense and cold atomic ensembles is vital for fundamental science and emerging quantum technologies. The effect of many-body quantum fluctuations on the scattering manifests most prominently at high densities when the light is close to saturation intensity, and especially significantly in the vicinity of subradiant resonances We find that these conditions produce maximal spin–spin correlations and entanglement of formation in the underlying atomic system, further confirming the role of many-body quantum correlations and entanglement in observing a difference in light transmission between QME and SCEs models. We find collective phenomena due to DD interactions that are many-body analogs of power broadening and vacuum Rabi splitting of atomic resonances in cavities[37,38], and demonstrate a significant effect of intensity on the transmission that may restrict the utilization of atomic arrays as highly reflective cooperative mirrors
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