Collective Light Emission of a Finite Size Atomic Chain

Radiative properties of collective electronic states in a one dimensional atomic chain are investigated. Radiative corrections are included with emphasize put on the effect of the chain size through the dependence on both the number of atoms and the lattice constant. The damping rates of collective states are calculated in considering radiative effects for different values of the lattice constant relative to the atomic transition wave length. Especially the symmetric state damping rate as a function of the number of the atoms is derived. The emission pattern off a finite linear chain is also presented. The results can be adopted for any chain of active material, e.g., a chain of semiconductor quantum dots or organic molecules on a linear matrix.Comment: 10 pages, 20 figure

Excitons and Cavity Polaritons for Optical Lattice Ultracold Atoms

Ultracold atoms uniformly filling an optical lattice can be treated like an artificial crystal. An implementation including the atomic occupation of a single excited atomic state can be represented by a two-component Bose-Hubbard model. Its phase diagram exhibits a quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator phase. The dynamics of electronic excitations governed by electrostatic dipole-dipole interactions in the ordered regime can be well described by wave-like collective excitations called excitons. Here we present an extensive study of such excitons for a wide range of geometries and dimensionality. Their lifetimes can vary over many orders of magnitude from metastable propagation to superradiant decay. Particularly strong effects occur in one dimensional atomic chains coupled to tapered optical fibers. For an optical lattice within a cavity the excitons are coupled to cavity photons and the resulting collective cavity QED model can be efficiently formulated in terms of polaritons. Their properties are explicitly calculated for different lattices and they constitute a non-destructive monitoring tool for important system properties. Even the formation of molecules in optical lattices manifests itself in modified polariton properties as e.g. an anisotropic optical spectrum. Partial dissipation of the exciton energy in the lattice leads to heating, which can be microscopically understood through a mechanism transferring atoms into higher Bloch bands via a resonant excitation transfer among neighboring lattice sites. The presence of lattice defects like vacancies in the Mott insulator induces a characteristic scattering of polaritons, which can be optically observed to monitor the lattice integrity. Our models can be applied to simulate and understand corresponding collective phenomena in solid crystals, where many effects are often masked by noise and disorder.Comment: 54 pages, 28 figure

Optical Properties of Collective Excitations for Finite Chains of Trapped Atoms

Resonant dipole-dipole interaction modifies the energy and decay rate of electronic excitations for finite one dimensional chains of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice. We show that collective excited states of the atomic chain can be divided into dark and bright modes, where a superradiant mode with an enhanced collective effective dipole dominates the optical scattering. Studying the generic case of two chain segments of different length and position exhibits an interaction blockade and spatially structured light emission. Ultimately, an extended system of several interfering segments models a long chain with randomly distributed defects of vacant sites. The corresponding emission pattern provides a sensitive tool to study structural and dynamical properties of the system.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figure

Collective Interactions in an Array of Atoms Coupled to a Nanophotonic Waveguide

A lattice of trapped atoms strongly coupled to a one-dimensional nanophotonic waveguide is investigated in exploiting the concept of polariton as the system natural eigenstate. We apply a bosonization procedure, which was presented separately by P. W. Anderson and V. M. Agranovich, to transform excitation spin-half operators into interacting bosons, and which shown here to confirm the hard-core boson model. We derive polariton-polariton kinematic interactions and study them by solving the scattering problem. In using the excitation-photon detuning as a control parameter, we examine the regime in which polaritons behave as weakly interacting photons, and propose the system for realizing superfluidity of photons. We implement the kinematic interaction as a mechanism for nonlinear optical processes that provide an observation tool for the system properties, e.g. the interaction strength produces a blue shift in pump-probe experiments.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure

Van der Waals Interactions among Alkali Rydberg Atoms with Excitonic States

We investigate the influence of the appearance of excitonic states on van der Waals interactions among two Rydberg atoms. The atoms are assumed to be in different Rydberg states, e.g., in the $|ns\rangle$ and $|np\rangle$ states. The resonant dipole-dipole interactions yield symmetric and antisymmetric excitons, with energy splitting that give rise to new resonances as the atoms approach each other. Only far from these resonances the van der Waals coefficients, $C_6^{sp}$, can be defined. We calculate the $C_6$ coefficients for alkali atoms and present the results for lithium by applying perturbation theory. At short interatomic distances of several $\mu m$, we show that the widely used simple model of two-level systems for excitons in Rydberg atoms breaks down, and the correct representation implies multi-level atoms. Even though, at larger distances one can keep the two-level systems but in including van der Waals interactions among the atoms.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Hybrid Quantum System of a Nanofiber Mode Coupled to Two Chains of Optically Trapped Atoms

A tapered optical nanofiber simultaneously used to trap and optically interface of cold atoms through evanescent fields constitutes a new and well controllable hybrid quantum system. The atoms are trapped in two parallel 1D optical lattices generated by suitable far blue and red detuned evanescent field modes very close to opposite sides of the nanofiber surface. Collective electronic excitations (excitons) of each of the optical lattices are resonantly coupled to the second lattice forming symmetric and antisymmetric common excitons. In contrast to the inverse cube dependence of the individual atomic dipole-dipole interaction, we analytically find an exponentially decaying coupling strength with distance between the lattices. The resulting symmetric (bright) excitons strongly interact with the resonant nanofiber photons to form fiber polaritons, which can be observed through linear optical spectra. For large enough wave vectors the polariton decay rate to free space is strongly reduced, which should render this system ideal for the realization of long range quantum communication between atomic ensembles.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure