Darrick Chang, The Institute of Photonic Sciences
Significant efforts have been made to interface cold atoms with micro- and nano-photonic systems in recent years. Originally, it was envisioned
that the migration to these systems from free-space atomic ensemble or
macroscopic cavity Quantum ElectroDynamics (QED) experiments could dramatically improve figures of merit and facilitate scalability. However, a more interesting question is whether nanophotonic systems can yield intrinsically new capabilities to manipulate quantum light-matter interactions, which cannot be realized in their macroscopic counterparts even in principle.
Here, we describe an example of a fundamentally new possibility,
involving the investigation of quantum systems with long-range
interactions. In particular, we show that atoms trapped near photonic
crystals can become dressed by localized photonic "clouds" of tunable
size. This cloud behaves much like an external cavity, but one which
follows the position of the atom. We describe how this dynamically
induced cavity allows one to mediate and control long-range interactions
between atoms, providing a powerful new tool for quantum simulation with cold atoms.