The dark-state effect, caused by destructive interference, not only is an important fundamental research topic in atomic physics and quantum optics, but also has wide potential application in quantum physics and quantum information science. Using the arrowhead-matrix method, here we study the dark-state effect in a coupled cavity-Rydberg-atom system, in which $N$ Rydberg atoms with the dipole-dipole interactions are coupled to a single-mode cavity field. We obtain the numbers and form of the dark states in certain excitation-number subspaces for the two-, three-, and four-atom cases, as well as in the single-excitation subspace for a general $N$-atom case. We also suggest to characterize the dark states by inspecting the populations of some specific quantum states, which can be detected in experiments. Furthermore, we analyze the dark-state effect in a realistic case, where both the atomic dipole-dipole interaction strengths and the atom-cavity-field coupling strengths depend on the position of the atoms. Our findings pave the way for studying dark-state physics and applications in the cavity-Rydberg-atom platform.
We propose how to achieve strong photon antibunching effect in a cavity-QED system coupled with two Rydberg-Rydberg interaction atoms. Via calculating the equal time second order correlation function g(2)(0), we find that the unconventional photon blockade and the conventional photon blockade appear in the atom-driven scheme, and they are both significantly affected by the Rydberg-Rydberg interaction. We also find that under appropriate parameters, the photon antibunching and the mean photon number can be significantly enhanced by combining the conventional photon blockade and the unconvention…
A dissipative scheme is proposed to prepare tripartite $W$ state in a Rydberg-atom-cavity system. It is an organic combination of quantum Zeno dynamics, Rydberg antiblockade and atomic spontaneous emission to turn the tripartite $W$ state into the unique steady state of the whole system. The robustness against the loss of cavity and the feasibility of the scheme are demonstrated thoroughly by the current experimental parameters, which leads to a high fidelity above $98\%$.
We describe a novel method for producing Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states in cold atoms coupled to a superconducting coplanar cavity. In the proposed scheme, atoms interact between each other by virtual photon exchange via a cavity mode. These interactions cause an asymmetric Rydberg blockade mechanism that suppresses simultaneous excitations into different atomic Rydberg levels, thus forcing all atoms to occupy the same Rydberg state. This mechanism has effect even if the atoms are separated by distances of the order of millimeters. The atomic populations are transferred adiabatically from …
We propose an implementation of a universal quantum gate between pairs of spatially separated atoms in a microwave cavity at finite temperature. The gate results from reversible laser excitation of Rydberg states of atoms interacting with each other via exchange of virtual photons through a common cavity mode. Quantum interference of different transition paths between the two-atom ground and double-excited Rydberg states makes both the transition amplitude and resonance largely insensitive to the excitations in the microwave cavity "quantum bus" which can therefore be in any superposition or m…
We investigate the coherent manipulation of interacting Rydberg atoms placed inside a high-finesse optical cavity for the deterministic preparation of strongly coupled light-matter systems. We consider a four-level diamond scheme with one common Rydberg level for N interacting atoms. One side of the diamond is used to excite the atoms into a collective `superatom' Rydberg state using either π-pulses or stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) pulses. The upper transition on the other side of the diamond is used to transfer the collective state to one that is coupled to a field mode of an op…
We study the atom-photon quantum interface with intracavity Rydberg-blocked atomic ensemble where the ground-Rydberg transition is realized by two-photon transition. Via theoretical analysis, we report our recent findings of the Jaynes-Cummings model on optical domain and robust atom-photon quantum gate enabled by this platform. The requirement on the implementation is mild which includes an optical cavity of moderately high finesse, typical alkali atoms such as Rb or Cs and the condition that cold atomic ensemble is well within the Rydberg blockade radius. The analysis focuses on the atomic e…
Rydberg atoms traversing a micromaser cavity one after the other can emerge in correlated states, and according to Copenhagen quantum mechanics this may lead to a violation of Bell's inequality, that is, to a Bell sum S>2. S is here calculated in various ideal physical situations including those with (1) different initial states of the atoms, (2) different free adjustable parameters, being either the phase or the turning angle of a classical radiation field put behind the cavity, and (3) either equal or different Rabi angles for successive atoms. The experiments are crucial for a realist inter…
Recently, the creation of photonic Landau levels in a twisted cavity has been demonstrated in Nature \textbf{534}, 671 (2016). Here we propose a scheme to adiabatically transfer flux quanta in multiples of $3\hbar$ simultaneously to all cavity photons by coupling the photons through flux-threaded cones present in such cavity setup. The flux transfer is achieved using external light fields with orbital angular momentum and a near-resonant dense atomic medium as mediator. Furthermore, coupling the cavity fields to a Rydberg state in a configuration supporting electromagnetically induced transpar…
With Rydberg dipole interactions, a mesoscopic atomic ensemble may behave like a two-level single atom, resulting in the so-called picture of superatom. It is in potential a strong candidate as a qubit in quantum information science, especially for efficient coupling with single photons via collective enhancement that is essential for building quantum internet to connect remote quantum computers. Previously, preliminary studies have been carried out in demonstrating basic concept of Rydberg superatom, a single-photon source, and entanglement with a single photon, etc. While a crucial element o…
We investigate the dynamical Casimir effect and its detection with Rydberg atoms. The photons are created in a resonant cavity with a plasma mirror of a semiconductor slab which is irradiated by periodic laser pulses. The canonical Hamiltonian is derived for the creation and annihilation operators showing the explicit time-variation in the couplings, which originates from the external configuration such as a nonstationary plasma mirror. The number of created photons is evaluated as squeezing from the Heisenberg equations with the Hamiltonian. Then, the detection of the photons as the atomic ex…
We present an experimental study of cavity assisted Rydberg atom electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using a high-finesse optical cavity ($F \sim 28000$). Rydberg atoms are excited via a two-photon transition in a ladder-type EIT configuration. A three-peak structure of the cavity transmission spectrum is observed when Rydberg EIT is generated inside the cavity. The two symmetrically spaced side peaks are caused by bright-state polaritons, while the central peak corresponds to a dark-state polariton. Anti-crossing phenomenon and the effects of mirror adsorbate electric fields are st…
We study the dynamics of a system composed of two coupled cavities, each containing a single Rydberg atom. The interplay between Rydberg-Rydberg interaction and photon hopping enables the transition of the atoms from the collective ground state to the double Rydberg excitation state by individually interacting with the hybrid cavity modes and suppressing the up conversion process between them. The atomic transition is accompanied by the two-photon absorption and emission of the hybrid modes. Since the energy level structure of the atom-cavity system is photon number dependent, there is only a …
We demonstrate hybridization of optical cavity photons with atomic Rydberg excitations using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The resulting dark state Rydberg polaritons exhibit a compressed frequency spectrum and enhanced lifetime indicating strong light-matter mixing. We study the coherence properties of cavity Rydberg polaritons and identify the generalized EIT linewidth for optical cavities. Strong collective coupling suppresses polariton losses due to inhomogeneous broadening, which we demonstrate by using different Rydberg levels with a range of polarizabilities. Our resul…
A Rydberg atom array coupled to a high-cooperativity optical cavity
University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Challenge Institute for Quantum Computation, University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校量子计算挑战研究所）；Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学）；Oratomic
A steady-state superradiant laser can be used to generate ultranarrow-linewidth light, and thus has important applications in the fields of quantum information and precision metrology. However, the light produced by such a laser is still essentially classical. Here, we show that the introduction of a Rydberg medium into a cavity containing atoms with a narrow optical transition can lead to the steady-state superradiant emission of ultranarrow-linewidth $nonclassical$ light. The cavity nonlinearity induced by the Rydberg medium strongly modifies the superradiance threshold, and leads to a Mollo…
This work reports on the real-time detection of internal-state dynamics of cold Rb$^{87}$ atoms being excited to the $30D_{5/2}$ Rydberg state via two-photon excitation. A mesoscopic cloud of atoms is overlapped with the mode volume of a confocal optical cavity and optically pumped by two laser beams transverse to the cavity axis. The excitation to Rydberg states changes the collective atom-cavity coupling, which is detected by monitoring the light transmitted through the cavity while being weakly driven. In addition to the damped coherent excitation dynamics and the decay back to the ground s…
Rydberg atoms are at the core of an increasing number of experiments, which frequently rely on destructive detection methods, such as field ionization. Here, we present an experimental realization of single-shot non-destructive detection of ensembles of helium Rydberg atoms. We use the dispersive frequency shift of a superconducting microwave cavity interacting with the ensemble. By probing the transmission of the cavity and measuring the change in its phase, we determine the number of Rydberg atoms or the populations of Rydberg quantum states when the ensemble is prepared in a superposition. …
In recent years the interest in studying interactions of Rydberg atoms or ensembles thereof with optical and microwave frequency fields has steadily increased, both in the context of basic research and for potential applications in quantum information processing. We present measurements of the dispersive interaction between an ensemble of helium atoms in the 37s Rydberg state and a single resonator mode by extracting the amplitude and phase change of a weak microwave probe tone transmitted through the cavity. The results are in quantitative agreement with predictions made on the basis of the d…
Inspired by a recent work [Reiter, Reeb, and Sørensen, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf117}, 040501 (2016)], we present a simplified proposal for dissipatively preparing a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state of three Rydberg atoms in a cavity. The $Z$ pumping is implemented under the action of the spontaneous emission of $Λ$-type atoms and the quantum Zeno dynamics induced by strong continuous coupling. In the meantime, a dissipative Rydberg pumping breaks up the stability of the state $|{\rm GHZ}_+\rangle$ in the process of $Z$ pumping, making $|{\rm GHZ}_-\rangle$ be the unique steady state of syst…
Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik（马克斯·普朗克量子光学研究所）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）；Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität（路德维希-马克西米利安大学）；Technische Universität München（慕尼黑工业大学）
A novel scheme is proposed for dissipative generation of maximally entanglement between two Rydberg atoms in the context of cavity QED. The spontaneous emission of atoms combined with quantum Zeno dynamics and Rydberg antiblockade guarantees a unique steady solution of the master equation of system, which just corresponds to the antisymmetric Bell state $|S\rangle$. The convergence rate is accelerated by the ground-state blockade mechanism of Rydberg atoms. Meanwhile the effect of cavity decay is suppressed by the Zeno requirement, leading to a steady-state fidelity about $90\%$ as the single-…
In a previous letter we studied the giant optical nonlinearities of a Rydberg atomic medium within an optical cavity, in the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism. In particular, we calculated the non-linear contributions to the spectrum of the light transmitted through the cavity. In this article we spell out the essential details of this calculation, and we show how it can be extended to higher input photon numbers, and higher order correlation functions. As a relevant example, we calculate and discuss the three-photon correlation function of the transmitted light, and discuss its physical significanc…
We study the two-dimensional Rydberg atom array in an optical cavity with help of the meanfield theory and the large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The strong dipole-dipole interactions between Rydberg atoms can make the system exhibit the crystal structure, and the coupling between two-level atom and cavity photon mode can result in the formation of the polariton. The interplay between them provides a rich quantum phase diagram including the Mott, solid-1/2, superradiant and superradiant solid phases. As the two-order co-existed phase, the superradiant solid phase breaks both translat…
We propose a hardware architecture and protocol for connecting many local quantum processors contained within an optical cavity. The scheme is compatible with trapped ions or Rydberg arrays, and realizes teleported gates between any two qubits by distributing entanglement via single-photon transfers through a cavity. Heralding enables high-fidelity entanglement even for a cavity of moderate quality. For processors composed of trapped ions in a linear chain, a single cavity with realistic parameters successfully transfers photons every few $μ$s, enabling the any-to-any entanglement of 20 ion ch…
We propose to implement the Jaynes-Cummings model by coupling a few-micrometer large atomic ensemble to a quantized cavity mode and classical laser fields. A two-photon transition resonantly couples the single-atom ground state |g> to a Rydberg state |e> via a non-resonant intermediate state |i>, but due to the interaction between Rydberg atoms only a single atom can be resonantly excited in the ensemble. This restricts the state space of the ensemble to the collective ground state |G> and the collectively excited state |E> with a single Rydberg excitation distributed evenly on all atoms. The …
Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a ladder system involving a Rydberg level is known to yield giant optical nonlinearities for the probe field, even in the few-photon regime. This enhancement is due to the strong dipole-dipole interactions between Rydberg atoms and the resulting excitation blockade phenomenon. In order to study such highly correlated media, ad hoc models or low-excitation assumptions are generally used to tackle their dynamical response to optical fields. Here, we study the behaviour of a cavity Rydberg-EIT setup in the non-equilibrium quantum field formalism, …
We report a high-finesse bow-tie cavity designed for atomic physics experiments with Rydberg atom arrays. The cavity has a finesse of $51,000$ and a waist of $7.1$ $μ$m at the cesium D2 line ($852$ nm). With these parameters, the cavity is expected to induce strong coupling between a single atom and a single photon, corresponding to a cooperativity per traveling mode of $35$ at the cavity waist. To trap and image atoms, the cavity setup utilizes two in-vacuum aspheric lenses with numerical aperture ($NA$) of $0.35$ and is capable of housing $NA=0.5$ microscope objectives. In addition, the larg…
Hybrid quantum systems involving cold atoms and microwave resonators can enable cavity-mediated infinite-range interactions between atomic spin systems and realize atomic quantum memories and transducers for microwave to optical conversion. To achieve strong coupling of atoms to on-chip microwave resonators, it was suggested to use atomic Rydberg states with strong electric dipole transitions. Here we report on the realization of coherent coupling of a Rydberg transition of ultracold atoms trapped on an integrated superconducting atom chip to the microwave field of an on-chip coplanar waveguid…
We experimentally characterize the optical nonlinear response of a cold atomic medium placed inside an optical cavity, and excited to Rydberg states. The excitation to S and D Rydberg levels is carried out via a two-photon transition in an EIT (electromagnetically induced transparency) configuration, with a weak (red) probe beam on the lower transition, and a strong (blue) coupling beam on the upper transition. The observed optical nonlinearities induced by S states for the probe beam can be explained using a semi-classical model with van der Waals' interactions. For the D states, it appears n…
Trapped ions are among the most promising platforms for quantum technologies. They are at the heart of the most precise clocks and sensors developed to date, which exploit the quantum coherence of a single electronic or motional degree of freedom of an ion. However, future high precision quantum metrology will require the use of entangled states of several degrees of freedom. Here we propose a protocol capable of generating high N00N states where the entanglement is shared between the motion of a trapped ion and an electromagnetic cavity mode, a so called hybrid configuration. We prove the fea…
We propose a novel scheme for high fidelity photonic controlled phase gates using Rydberg blockade in an ensemble of atoms in an optical cavity. The gate operation is obtained by first storing a photonic pulse in the ensemble and then scattering a second pulse from the cavity, resulting in a phase change depending on whether the first pulse contained a single photon. We show that the combination of Rydberg blockade and optical cavities effectively enhances the optical non-linearity created by the strong Rydberg interaction and thereby reduces the requirements for photonic quantum gates. The re…
The coherent interaction of Rydberg helium atoms with microwave fields in a $λ/4$ superconducting coplanar waveguide resonator has been exploited to probe the spectral characteristics of an individual resonator mode. This was achieved by preparing the atoms in the 1s55s$^3$S$_1$ Rydberg level by resonance enhanced two-color two-photon excitation from the metastable 1s2s$^3$S$_1$ level. The atoms then travelled over the resonator in which the third harmonic microwave field, at a frequency of $ω_{\mathrm{res}}=2π\times19.556$ GHz, drove the two-photon 1s55s$^3$S$_1\rightarrow$1s56s$^3$S$_1$ tran…
We study interactions between polaritons, arising when photons strongly couple to collective excitations in an array of two-level atoms trapped in an optical lattice inside a cavity. We consider two types of interactions between atoms: Dipolar forces and atomic saturability, which ranges from hard-core repulsion to Rydberg blockade. We show that, in spite of the underlying repulsion in the subsystem of atomic excitations, saturability induces a broadband bunching of photons for two-polariton scattering states. We interpret this bunching as a result of interference, and trace it back to the mis…
The correction of errors is of fundamental importance for the development of contemporary computing devices and of robust communication protocols. In this paper we propose a scheme for the implementation of the three-qubit quantum repetition code, exploiting the interaction of Rydberg atoms with the quantized mode of a microwave cavity field. Quantum information is encoded within two circular Rydberg states of the atoms and encoding and decoding process are realized within two separate microwave cavities. We show that errors due to phase noise fluctuations could be efficiently corrected using …
We theoretically investigate the optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT) phenomenon in a N-cavity optomechanical system doped with a pair of Rydberg atoms with the presence of a strong pump field and a weak probe field applied to the Nth cavity. 2N-1(N<10) number OMIT windows can be observed in the output field when N cavities coupled with N mechanical oscillators, respectively. But, the mechanical oscillators coupled with different even-odd label cavities lead to different effect on OMIT. On the other hand, two additional transparent windows (extra resonances) are presented, if two Rydbe…
We propose a Ramsey interferometry experiment using an entangled state of N atoms to reach the Heisenberg limit for the estimation of an atomic phase shift if the atom number parity is perfectly determined. In a more realistic situation, due to statistical fluctuations of the atom source and the finite detection efficiency, the parity is unknown. We then achieve about half the Heisenberg limit. The scheme involves an ensemble of circular Rydberg atoms which dispersively interact successively with two initially empty microwave cavities. The scheme does not require very high-Q cavities. An exper…
We study optical bistable behavior of a Rydberg electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) atomic medium in a unidirectional optical ring-cavity. Due to strong van del Waal (vdW) interactions between the atoms, both optical nonlinear dispersion and nonlinear absorption coefficients are enhanced substantially. Under the condition of two-photon on resonance, we show that probe one-photon detuning can change the phase of the third order nonlinearity coefficient, which tunes the character of the optical bistability within different ratios of dispersive and absorptive types. This enables the si…
Quantum spin liquids are exotic phases of matter that are prevented from being frozen even at zero temperature, and appear disordered by local probes that monitor the subsystems. Driven by quantum fluctuations, topological spin liquids are manifested by their long-range entanglement, and are characterized by quasiparticles with fractional statistics. Here, we make contact of a 2D Rydberg ice to a QED vacuum of an ultra-high-finesse optical cavity, and dynamically promote the frustrated background field of the spin ice to a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ spin liquid. We characterize the deconfined nature of th…
A quantum-feedback-based scheme is proposed for generating multipartite entanglements of Rydberg atoms in a dissipative optical cavity. The Rydberg blockade mechanism efficiently prevents double excitations of the system, which is further exploited to speed up the stabilization of an entangled state with a single Rydberg state excitation. The corresponding feedback operations are greatly simplified, since only one regular atom needs to be controlled during the whole process, irrespective of the number of particles. The form of entangled state is also adjustable via regulating the Rabi frequenc…
We realize a coherent transfer between a laser-accessible low-angular-momentum Rydberg state and the circular Rydberg level with maximal angular momentum. This transfer is induced by a radiofrequency field with a high-purity $σ^+$ polarization tuned at resonance on Stark transitions inside the hydrogenic Rydberg manifold. We observe over a few microseconds more than twenty coherent Rabi oscillations between the initial Rydberg state and the circular Rydberg level. We characterize in details these complex oscillations involving many Rydberg levels and find them to be in perfect agreement with a…
We propose a scheme to implement two-qubit Grover's quantum search algorithm using Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics. Circular Rydberg atoms are used as quantum bits (qubits). They interact with the electromagnetic field of a non-resonant cavity . The quantum gate dynamics is provided by a cavity-assisted collision, robust against decoherence processes. We present the detailed procedure and analyze the experimental feasibility.
In this article we discuss two schemes of teleportation of atomic states. In the first scheme we consider atoms in a three-level cascade configuration and in the second scheme we consider atoms in a three-level lambda configuration. The experimental realization proposed makes use of cavity Quatum Electrodynamics involving the interaction of Rydberg atoms with a micromaser cavity prepared in a state $|ψ>_{C}=(|0> +|1>)/\sqrt{2}$
We study ensembles of Rydberg atoms in a confined electromagnetic environment such as provided by a microwave cavity. The competition between standard free space Ising type and cavity-mediated interactions leads to the emergence of different regimes where the particle-particle couplings range from the typical van der Waals $r^{-6}$ behavior to $r^{-3}$ and to $r$-independence. We apply a Ramsey spectroscopic technique to map the two-body interactions into a characteristic signal such as intensity and contrast decay curves. As opposed to previous treatments requiring high-densities for consider…
We propose a scheme to generate arbitrary Fock states |N> in a cavity QED using N resonant Rydberg atoms. The atom-field interaction times are controlled via Stark-shifts adjusted in a way that each atom transfers a photon to the cavity, turning atomic detections useless. Fluctuations affecting the control of the atom-field interactions are also considered.
