Mimicking interacting relativistic theories with stationary pulses of light

Abstract

One of the most well known relativistic field theory models is the Thirring model (TM). Its realization can demonstrate the famous prediction for the renormalization of mass due to interactions. However, experimental verification of the latter requires complex accelerator experiments whereas analytical solutions of the model can be extremely cumbersome to obtain. In this work, following Feynman's original proposal, we propose a alternative quantum system as a simulator of the TM dynamics. Here the relativistic particles are mimicked, counter-intuitively, by polarized photons in a quantum nonlinear medium. We show that the entire set of regimes of the Thirring model -- bosonic or fermionic, and massless or massive -- can be faithfully reproduced using coherent light trapping techniques. The sought after correlations' scalings can be extracted by simple probing of the coherence functions of the light using standard optical techniques.

arXiv comment6 pages with 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (16)

• Quantum Simulation
• Quantum simulations and many-body physics with light
• Quantum Simulation with Interacting Photons
• Photon transport mediated by an atomic chain trapped along a photonic crystal waveguide
• A one-dimensional ultracold medium of extreme optical depth
• Stationary light pulses and narrowband light storage in a laser-cooled ensemble loaded into a hollow-core fiber
• Photon scattering by an atomic ensemble coupled to a one-dimensional nanophotonic waveguide
• Rydberg excitation of cold atoms inside a hollow core fiber
• Probing the topological properties of the Jackiw-Rebbi model with light
• Atomic mercury vapor inside a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber
• Spontaneous mass generation due to phonons in a two-dimensional Dirac fermion system
• Simultaneous Trapping of Two Optical Pulses in an Atomic Ensemble as Stationary Light Pulses
• Emergent Chern-Simons excitations due to electron--phonon interaction
• Optimal pulse propagation in an inhomogeneously gas-filled hollow-core fiber
• Trapping a Free-propagating Single-photon into an Atomic Ensemble as a Quantum Stationary Light Pulse
• Realizing topological relativistic dynamics with slow light polaritons at room temperature