Scattering resonances and bound states for strongly interacting Rydberg polaritons

Published

November 3, 2014

Author(s)

Przemek Bienias, Soonwon Choi, Ofer Firstenberg, Mohammad F. Maghrebi, Mikhail Lukin, Alexey Gorshkov, Hans Peter Buchler

Abstract

We provide a rigorous framework describing a low-density gas of slow-light polaritons propagating in one dimension under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency and interacting via strong Rydberg-Rydberg interactions. Specifically, we use a diagrammatic method to analytically derive the scattering properties of two polaritons. We discover previously unexplored parameter regimes where polariton-polariton interactions are repulsive. Furthermore, in the regime of attractive interactions, we identify multiple two-polariton bound states, calculate their dispersion, and study the resulting scattering resonances. Finally, the two-particle scattering properties allow us to derive the exact low-energy many-body Hamiltonian. This theoretical platform is immediately applicable to ongoing experiments.

Citation

Physical Review A

Volume

90

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.90.053804

Local Download

Keywords

Rydberg atoms, electromagnetically induced transparency, dark state polaritons, two-photon bound states, interacting photons

Citation

Bienias, P. , Choi, S. , Firstenberg, O. , Maghrebi, M. , Lukin, M. , Gorshkov, A. and Buchler, H. (2014), Scattering resonances and bound states for strongly interacting Rydberg polaritons, Physical Review A, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.90.053804, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=915456 (Accessed October 12, 2025)