Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons

Published

September 18, 2015

Author(s)

Mohammad F. Maghrebi, Michael Gullans, Przemek Bienias, Soonwon Choi, Ivar Martin, Ofer Firstenberg, Mikhail D. Lukin, Hans Peter Buchler, Alexey Gorshkov

Abstract

We show that two photons coupled to Rydberg states via electromagnetically induced transparency can interact via an effective Coulomb potential. This interaction gives rise to a continuum of two-body bound states. Within the continuum, metastable bound states are distinguished in analogy with quasibound states tunneling through a potential barrier. We find multiple branches of metastable bound states whose energy spectrum is governed by the Coulomb potential, thus obtaining a photonic analogue of the hydrogen atom. Under certain conditions, the wave function resembles that of a diatomic molecule in which the two polaritons are separated by a finite "bond length." These states propagate with a negative group velocity in the medium, allowing for a simple preparation and detection scheme, before they slowly decay to pairs of bound Rydberg atoms.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

115

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.123601

Local Download

Keywords

quantum optics, Rydberg atoms, interacting photons

Citation

Maghrebi, M. , Gullans, M. , Bienias, P. , Choi, S. , Martin, I. , Firstenberg, O. , Lukin, M. , Buchler, H. and Gorshkov, A. (2015), Coulomb bound states of strongly interacting photons, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.123601, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=918021 (Accessed October 8, 2025)