Many-body physics of Rydberg dark-state polaritons in the strongly interacting regime

Matthias Moos, Michael Höning, Razmik Unanyan, and Michael Fleischhauer
Phys. Rev. A 92, 053846 – Published 19 November 2015

Abstract

Coupling light to Rydberg states of atoms under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) leads to the formation of interacting quasiparticles, termed Rydberg polaritons. We derive a one-dimensional model describing the time evolution of these polaritons under paraxial propagation conditions. Specifically, we obtain a master equation governing the dynamics of Rydberg polaritons and identify conditions when it can essentially be described by an effective Hamiltonian of a single-species polariton. We verify this Hamiltonian by numerical two-excitation simulations. Under typical stationary EIT conditions it is impossible to reach the strongly interacting regime where long-range density-density correlations emerge. In contrast, by employing the time dependence of the control field the regime of strong interactions can be reached where the polaritons attain quasicrystalline order. We provide a physical explanation for the differences between stationary and time-dependent schemes.

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  • Received 29 June 2015
  • Revised 30 September 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.92.053846

©2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Matthias Moos*, Michael Höning, Razmik Unanyan, and Michael Fleischhauer

  • Fachbereich Physik und Forschungszentrum OPTIMAS, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany

  • *mmoos@physik.uni-kl.de

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Vol. 92, Iss. 5 — November 2015

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