Optical waveguiding by atomic entanglement in multilevel atom arrays
Abstract
Atomic ensembles constitute a dominant platform for realizing quantum interfaces between light and matter. In dense and ordered arrays, destructive interference in photon emission leads to the emergence of subradiant states, which are protected from radiative decay and have long lifetimes. This phenomenon has attracted a lot of interest recently, with work showing that collective emission can be used to realize improved quantum memories and atomic mirrors. These ideas strongly rely on one assumption: that atoms have a unique ground state. Our work discusses the survival of subradiance for atoms with complex internal structure. In particular, we unveil a different mechanism for subradiance, which crucially depends on entanglement, a radical departure from the physics of classical-dipole lattices or 2-level atom arrays.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Nov 26, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1911467116
Entities
People
- Ana Asenjo-garcia
- Darrick E. Chang
- H. Jeff Kimble
Organizations
- Barcelona Institute for Science and Technology
- California Institute of Technology
- Columbia University