1202.2776 (Huaixiu Zheng et al.)

Strongly-Correlated Photons Generated by Coupling a Three- or Four-level
System to a Waveguide    [PDF]

Huaixiu Zheng, Daniel J. Gauthier, Harold U. Baranger

We study the generation of strongly-correlated photons by coupling an atom to
photonic quantum fields in a one-dimensional waveguide. Specifically, we
consider a three-level or four-level system for the atom. Photon-photon
bound-states emerge as a manifestation of the strong photon-photon correlation
mediated by the atom. Effective repulsive or attractive interaction between
photons can be produced, causing either suppressed multiphoton transmision
(photon blockade) or enhanced multiphoton transmision (photon-induced
tunneling). As a result, nonclassical light sources can be generated on demand
by sending coherent states into the proposed system. We calcuate the
second-order correlation function of the transmitted field and observe bunching
and anti-bunching caused by the bound-states. Furthermore, we demonstrate that
the proposed system can produce photon pairs with a high degree of spectral
entanglement, which have a large capacity for carrying information and are
important for large-alphabet quantum communication.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.2776