Interference and dynamics of light from a distance-controlled atom pair in an optical cavity

Abstract

Interference is central to quantum physics and occurs when indistinguishable paths exist, like in a double-slit experiment. Replacing the two slits with two single atoms introduces optical non-linearities for which nontrivial interference phenomena are predicted. Their observation, however, has been hampered by difficulties in preparing the required atomic distribution, controlling the optical phases and detecting the faint light. Here we overcome all of these experimental challenges by combining an optical lattice for atom localisation, an imaging system with single-site resolution, and an optical resonator for light steering. We observe resonator-induced saturation of resonance fluorescence for constructive interference of the scattered light and nonzero emission with huge photon bunching for destructive interference. The latter is explained by atomic saturation and photon pair generation. Our experimental setting is scalable and allows one to realize the Tavis-Cummings model for any number of atoms and photons, explore fundamental aspects of light-matter interaction, and implement new quantum information processing protocols.

9 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Photon-mediated interactions between distant artificial atoms
• Dissipative preparation of entanglement in optical cavities
• Two-photon gateway in one-atom cavity quantum electrodynamics
• Enhanced Quantum Interface with Collective Ion-Cavity Coupling
• Cavity-Modified Collective Rayleigh Scattering of Two Atoms
• Suppression of Bragg scattering by collective interference of spatially ordered atoms with a high-Q cavity mode
• Non-linear optics with two trapped atoms
• Strong-field spatial interference in a tailored electromagnetic bath

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