Observation of three-photon bound states in a quantum nonlinear medium
Abstract
Bound states of massive particles, such as nuclei, atoms or molecules, constitute the bulk of the visible world around us. In contrast, photons typically only interact weakly. We report the observation of traveling three-photon bound states in a quantum nonlinear medium where the interactions between photons are mediated by atomic Rydberg states. Photon correlation and conditional phase measurements reveal the distinct bunching and phase features associated with three-photon and two-photon bound states. Such photonic trimers and dimers possess shape-preserving wavefunctions that depend on the constituent photon number. The observed bunching and strongly nonlinear optical phase are quantitatively described by an effective field theory (EFT) of Rydberg-induced photon-photon interactions, consistent with the presence of a substantial effective three-body force between the photons. These observations demonstrate the ability to realize and control strongly interacting quantum many-body states of light.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1709.01478,
title = {Observation of three-photon bound states in a quantum nonlinear medium},
author = {Qi-Yu Liang and Aditya V. Venkatramani and Sergio H. Cantu and Travis L. Nicholson and Michael J. Gullans and Alexey V. Gorshkov and Jeff D. Thompson and Cheng Chin and Mikhail D. Lukin and Vladan Vuletic},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.01478},
year = {2018}
}