Quantum wave mixing and visualisation of coherent and superposed photonic states in a waveguide

Abstract

Superconducting quantum systems (artificial atoms) have been recently successfully used to demonstrate on-chip effects of quantum optics with single atoms in the microwave range. In particular, a well-known effect of four-wave mixing could reveal a series of features beyond classical physics, when a non-linear medium is scaled down to a single quantum scatterer. Here we demonstrate a phenomenon of the quantum wave mixing (QWM) on a single superconducting artificial atom. In the QWM, the spectrum of elastically scattered radiation is a direct map of the interacting superposed and coherent photonic states. Moreover, the artificial atom visualises photon-state statistics, distinguishing coherent, one- and two-photon superposed states with the finite (quantized) number of peaks in the quantum regime. Our results may give a new insight into nonlinear quantum effects in microwave optics with artificial atoms.

6 pages, 5 figures; accepted version

References in corpus (5)

• Resolving photon number states in a superconducting circuit
• Photon-mediated interactions between distant artificial atoms
• Generating Single Microwave Photons in a Circuit
• Single artificial-atom lasing
• Observation of Dicke Superradiance for Two Artificial Atoms in a Cavity with High Decay Rate

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Effects of photon statistics in wave mixing on a single qubit
• Detecting the relative phase between different frequency components of a photon using a three-level $\Lambda$ atom coupled to a waveguide
• Single photons versus coherent state input in waveguide quantum electrodynamics: light scattering, Kerr and cross-Kerr effect
• Dynamics and Resonance Fluorescence from a Superconducting Artificial Atom Doubly Driven by Quantized and Classical Fields
• Tuning atom-field interaction via phase shaping
• Direct experimental observation of sub-poissonian photon statistics by means of multi-photon scattering on a two-level system
• Time dynamics of multi-photon scattering in a two-level mixer
• Compact Itinerant Microwave Photonics with Superconducting High-Kinetic Inductance Microstrips
• Evolution of coherent waves driving a single artificial atom
• Tunable frequency conversion and comb generation with a superconducting artificial atom
• Experimental study of matter-wave four-wave mixing in ${}^{39}$K Bose-Einstein condensates with tunable interaction