Fractional Quantum Hall States of Rydberg Polaritons

Published

March 31, 2015

Author(s)

Mohammad F. Maghrebi, Norman Y. Yao, Mohammad Hafezi, Thomas Pohl, Ofer Firstenberg, Alexey Gorshkov

Abstract

We propose a scheme for realizing fractional quantum Hall states of light. In our scheme, photons of two polarizations are coupled to Rydberg atoms via auxiliary classical control fields to form two flavors of Rydberg polaritons, effective spin up and spin down. An array of optical modes overlapping with the atomic cloud allows for the creation of an array of these effective spin-$1/2$ particles. Inherited from the Rydberg atoms, the dipolar interaction between Rydberg polaritons is exploited to create a flat topological band for a single spin-flip excitation. At half filling, this topological flat band gives rise to a photonic fractional quantum Hall state on a lattice, i.e. a fractional Chern insulator. In the absence of quantized light, the proposed scheme also allows one to implement fractional quantum Hall states of Rydberg atoms in a lattice.

Citation

Physical Review A

Volume

91

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.91.033838

Local Download

Keywords

Rydberg polaritons, fractional quantum Hall, interacting topological phases, interacting photons

Citation

Maghrebi, M. , Yao, N. , Hafezi, M. , Pohl, T. , Firstenberg, O. and Gorshkov, A. (2015), Fractional Quantum Hall States of Rydberg Polaritons, Physical Review A, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.91.033838, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=917284 (Accessed October 10, 2025)