Related papers: Strongly non-linear interaction between non-classi…

Cold atomic clouds constitute highly resonant nonlinear optical media, whose refractive index can be easily tuned via the light frequency. When subjected to a retro-reflected laser beam and under appropriate conditions, the cloud undergoes…

We study the long-range interaction of a single ion with a highly excited ultracold Rydberg atom and report on the direct observation of ion-induced Rydberg excitation blockade mediated over tens of micrometer distances. Our hybrid ion-atom…

We propose a new method to create two-photon states in a controllable way using interaction between the Rydberg atoms during the storage and retrieval of slow light. A distinctive feature of the suggested procedure is that the slow light is…

The idea of making photons effectively interact has attracted a lot of interest in recent years, for several reasons. Firstly, since photons do not naturally interact with each other, it is of fundamental physical interest to see what kind…

Photons in a nonlinear medium can repel or attract each other, resulting in a strongly correlated quantum many-body system. Typically, such strongly correlated states of light arise from the extreme nonlinearity granted by quantum emitters…

The interaction between light and matter is fundamental to developments in quantum optics and information. Over recent years enormous progress has been made in controlling the interface between light and single emitters including ions,…

Electromagnetically induced transparency in an optically thick, cold medium creates a unique system where pulse-propagation velocities may be orders of magnitude less than $c$ and optical nonlinearities become exceedingly large. As a…

Photonic materials are an emerging platform to explore quantum matter and quantum dynamics. The development of Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency provided a clear route to strong interactions between individual optical…

We develop an approach to generate finite-range atomic interactions via optical Rydberg-state excitation and study the underlying excitation dynamics in theory and experiment. In contrast to previous work, the proposed scheme is based on…

Quantum entanglement is crucial for simulating and understanding exotic physics of strongly correlated many-body systems, such as high--temperature superconductors, or fractional quantum Hall states. The entanglement of non-identical…

We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of the effects of Rydberg interactions on Autler-Townes spectra of ultracold gases of atomic strontium. Realizing two-photon Rydberg excitation via a long-lived triplet state allows…

We model single photon nonlinearities resulting from the dipole-dipole interactions of cold polar molecules. We propose utilizing ``dark state polaritons'' to effectively couple photon and molecular states; through this framework, coherent…

In analog to counterparts widely used in electronic circuits, all optical non-reciprocal devices are basic building blocks for both classical and quantum optical information processing. Approaching the fundamental limit of such devices,…

We investigate the photon statistics of an ensemble of coherently driven non-interacting two-level atoms in the weak driving regime. As it turns out, the system displays unique emission characteristics that are strongly in contrast to the…

We theoretically propose a scheme for photon blockade in a cavity quantum electrodynamical system consisting of an N-type atomic medium interacting with a single-mode Fabry-Perot cavity. In contrast to inefficient…

We propose a hybrid optomechanical quantum system consisting of a moving membrane strongly coupled to an ensemble of N atoms with a Rydberg state. Due to the strong van-der-Waals interaction between the atoms, the ensemble forms an…

We study coherent backscattering of a monochromatic laser by a dilute gas of cold two-level atoms in the weakly nonlinear regime. The nonlinear response of the atoms results in a modification of both the average field propagation (nonlinear…

Among the thriving quantum computation and quantum simulation platforms based on arrays of Rydberg atoms, those using circular Rydberg atoms are particularly promising. These atoms uniquely combine the strong dipole-dipole interactions…

Thermalization of isolated quantum systems is an intriguing phenomenon at the forefront of contemporary physics. In this work, we demonstrate that nonlinear multimode optical platforms can be harnessed to induce effective quantum…

We study the fluctuation-mediated interactions between two atoms in the presence of an aplanatic lens, demonstrating an enhancement in their resonant dipole-dipole interaction. We derive the field propagation of the linear optical system in…