Emergence of solitons from many-body photon bound states in quantum nonlinear media
Solitons are known to occur in the context of atom-light interaction via the well-known semiclassical phenomenon of self-induced transparency (SIT). Separately, in the regime where both light and atoms are fully treated quantum mechanically, quantum few-photon bound states are known to be a ubiquito...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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American Physical Society
2022-04-01
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Series: | Physical Review Research |
Online Access: | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.023026 |
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author | G. Calajó D. E. Chang |
author_facet | G. Calajó D. E. Chang |
author_sort | G. Calajó |
collection | DOAJ |
description | Solitons are known to occur in the context of atom-light interaction via the well-known semiclassical phenomenon of self-induced transparency (SIT). Separately, in the regime where both light and atoms are fully treated quantum mechanically, quantum few-photon bound states are known to be a ubiquitous phenomenon that arises in different systems such as atoms coupled to chiral or bidirectional waveguides, and in Rydberg atomic media. In the specific case of two-level atoms coupled to a chiral waveguide, a recent analysis based on Bethe ansatz has established that SIT emerges from the quantum realm as a superposition of quantum many-photon bound states. Beyond this case, however, the nature of any connection between the full quantum many-body regime and semiclassical behavior has not been established. Here, we employ a general spin-model formulation of quantum atom-light interfaces to numerically investigate this problem, taking advantage of the fact that this approach readily allows for powerful many-body simulations based on matrix product states (MPS). We first analytically derive the two-photon bound state dispersion relation for a variety of atom-light interfaces and then proceed to numerically investigate the multiexcitation bound states dynamics. Interestingly, for all the specific systems studied, we find that the large-photon number limit always coincides with the soliton phenomenon of self-induced transparency or immediate generalizations thereof. |
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format | Article |
id | doaj.art-f26bbf831d8440f6ba89e890666ee920 |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 2643-1564 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-04-24T10:16:48Z |
publishDate | 2022-04-01 |
publisher | American Physical Society |
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series | Physical Review Research |
spelling | doaj.art-f26bbf831d8440f6ba89e890666ee9202024-04-12T17:19:45ZengAmerican Physical SocietyPhysical Review Research2643-15642022-04-014202302610.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.023026Emergence of solitons from many-body photon bound states in quantum nonlinear mediaG. CalajóD. E. ChangSolitons are known to occur in the context of atom-light interaction via the well-known semiclassical phenomenon of self-induced transparency (SIT). Separately, in the regime where both light and atoms are fully treated quantum mechanically, quantum few-photon bound states are known to be a ubiquitous phenomenon that arises in different systems such as atoms coupled to chiral or bidirectional waveguides, and in Rydberg atomic media. In the specific case of two-level atoms coupled to a chiral waveguide, a recent analysis based on Bethe ansatz has established that SIT emerges from the quantum realm as a superposition of quantum many-photon bound states. Beyond this case, however, the nature of any connection between the full quantum many-body regime and semiclassical behavior has not been established. Here, we employ a general spin-model formulation of quantum atom-light interfaces to numerically investigate this problem, taking advantage of the fact that this approach readily allows for powerful many-body simulations based on matrix product states (MPS). We first analytically derive the two-photon bound state dispersion relation for a variety of atom-light interfaces and then proceed to numerically investigate the multiexcitation bound states dynamics. Interestingly, for all the specific systems studied, we find that the large-photon number limit always coincides with the soliton phenomenon of self-induced transparency or immediate generalizations thereof.http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.023026 |
spellingShingle | G. Calajó D. E. Chang Emergence of solitons from many-body photon bound states in quantum nonlinear media Physical Review Research |
title | Emergence of solitons from many-body photon bound states in quantum nonlinear media |
title_full | Emergence of solitons from many-body photon bound states in quantum nonlinear media |
title_fullStr | Emergence of solitons from many-body photon bound states in quantum nonlinear media |
title_full_unstemmed | Emergence of solitons from many-body photon bound states in quantum nonlinear media |
title_short | Emergence of solitons from many-body photon bound states in quantum nonlinear media |
title_sort | emergence of solitons from many body photon bound states in quantum nonlinear media |
url | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.023026 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT gcalajo emergenceofsolitonsfrommanybodyphotonboundstatesinquantumnonlinearmedia AT dechang emergenceofsolitonsfrommanybodyphotonboundstatesinquantumnonlinearmedia |